UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



From an engraving of the original Picture by Vivien.. 



THOUGHTS 



ON 



SPIRITUAL SUBJECTS, 



TRANSLATED 

FROM THE WRITINGS OF TENELON. 



BOSTON: 

SAMUEL G. SIMPKINS. 
1843. 



Entered according to Act of Confess, in the year 1843, 

By Samuel G. Simpkins, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
Massachusetts. 




ISAAC R. BUTTS, PRINTER, 

JVo. 2 School Street. 



PREFACE. 



As the spiritual works of Fenelon have be- 
come extensively known among us through 
Mrs. Follen's valuable Selections, and are 
so highly valued, it is hoped that this ad- 
ditional volume of Translations may not be 
unacceptable. They are taken from the 
third volume of his (Euvres Spirituelles, 
and consist m the original of detached 
chapters on various topics relating to the 
spiritual life. Some of them seem origin- 
ally to have been written as letters, being 
apparently addressed to individuals : though 

B 



iv PREFACE. 

this is not indicated in their titles. I have 
occasionally taken whole chapters, some- 
times parts only, omitting such portions as 
sentiment, taste, or other reasons, led me to 
reject. But I have by no means thought 
it necessary to omit what was not in ac- 
cordance with my own views or feelings, 
especially as it is the spirit pervading the 
writings of Fenelon, and not the particular 
opinions expressed or implied, that gives to 
them their value. As most of these extracts 
have at some time interested my own mind, 
and as they portray so deep and varied in- 
ternal experience, it has seemed to me that 
they might interest others also, and be 
suited to various spiritual conditions and 
wants. 

In translating, it has been my aim to 
keep near the original, both in spirit and 
form, and retain the peculiarities of expres- 
sion, as far as could well be done ; and with 



PREFACE. 



V 



this view I have chosen occasionally, some 
degree of harshness, and perhaps even 
incorrectness of expression, rather than 
sacrifice these. If some of the language of 
the portions here selected be objected to, 
as singular, not sanctioned by common use, 
on such subjects, and not easily under- 
stood, let it be considered that it was the 
phraseology in use among the religious 
of Fenelon's age and church ; and more- 
over, that it relates to a region of thought 
and sentiment whose profound and delicate 
experiences are not easily stated in common 
language and to the apprehension of all, but 
require a corresponding taste and experience 
in order to be understood. Thus parts 
which will seem, to some, beautiful and 
profound statements of religious truths, to 
others may seem extravagant fancies, or 
subtile refinements of ascetic piety. It is 
proper to state that parts of the chapter 
on Prayer and the Principal Exercises of 



vi 



PREFACE. 



Piety, are contained in Mrs. Follen's vol- 
ume of Selections ; they are retained here 
as they could not well be omitted without 
leaving out also other parts of the same 
chapter not translated in her work. 

The Translator. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

That God is now Little Known, 1 

Advice with regard to Prayer, and the Principal Ex- 
ercises of Piety 4 

On Humility 11 

On Prayer 17 

On Meditation 24 

On Self-Renunciation, 27 

On Detachment from Self 40 

On Sadness. . • 48 

On Distraction of Mind and Sadness • . 51 

On Confidence in God • 66 

In what manner we should watch over Ourselves. . 68 

On Crosses 71 

Necessity of the Purification of the Soul, in respect 

to the Gifts of God, and especially Friendships. . . 80 

On the Operations of God within the Soul, to lead man 

to the true end for which he was Created. ... 90 

On Christian Perfection 97 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

That the way of Naked Faith and Pure Charity is 
Better and more Safe than that of Knowledge and 

Spiritual Enjoyments 102 

On the Presence of God 107 

On Conformity to the Will of God 112 

On Gratitude 118 

That Love alone knows how to endure Sufferings 

truly, and to Love Sufferings 125 

Disinterested and Interested Love have each their 

Season 127 

On True Liberty : 130 

On the Employment of Time 133 

On too Great Sensibility under Sufferings 137 

Of the Crosses in a condition of Prosperity, High Sta- 
tion, and Greatness 139 

For the Days of the Church : — 

Day of St. John, the Evangelist 143 

For Lent .145 



I 



TRANSLATIONS FROM FENELOX. 



TRANSLATIONS FROM FENELON. 



THAT GOD IS NOW LITTLE KNOWN. 

What men are most in want of, is the knowl- 
edge of God. They become acquainted, after 
much reading, with a certain series of miracles 
and marks of Providence, by the facts of his- 
tory ; they have made serious reflections upon 
the corruption and frailty of the world ; they 
have even become convinced of certain maxims 
useful for the reformation of their conduct with 
reference to their salvation, but all this edifice 
wants foundation ; this body of piety and Chris- 
tianity is without soul. That which should ani- 
mate the true believer is the idea of God, who 
1 



2 THAT GOD IS NOW LITTLE KNOWN. 

is all, who does all, and to whom all is due. 
He is infinite in all, in wisdom, in power, in 
love. We should not be astonished, therefore, 
if all that comes from him, possesses this char- 
acter of infinite and surpasses human reason. 
When he prepares and arranges aught, his 
counsels and his ways are, as the scripture says, 
as far above our counsels and ways as the 
heaven is above the earth. When he would 
execute what he has resolved, his power is 
shown by no effort, for there is no effect how- 
ever great, that is less easy to him than the most 
common ; it has cost him no more to draw from 
nothing the heaven and earth, such as we see 
them, than to make a river run down its natural 
course, or to let a stone fall from above. His 
power is found entire in his will ; he has only 
to will, and things are at once done. If the 
scriptures represent him as speaking in creation, 
it is not that he had need of a word proceeding 
from him, to make all his will understood by the 
nature he wished to produce. This word that 
the scriptures represent to us, is entirely simple 
and interior ; it is the thought he has had of 
creating things, and the purpose he has formed 
in the depths of his own being. This thought 



THAT GOD IS NOW LITTLE KNOWN. 3 



has been fruitful, and without going forth from 
him, has drawn from him as the source of all 
beings, all those which compose the universe. 
His mercy, in like manner, is nothing else than 
his pure will. He has loved us before the crea- 
tion of the world ; he has seen us, he has known 
us and prepared for us his blessings. He has 
loved and chosen us from eternity. When any 
new blessing comes to us, it flows from this 
same original source ; God has never any new 
will with regard to us ; he does not change ; 
it is we who change. When we are just and 
good we are conformed and agreeable to him ; 
when we forsake justice, when we cease to be 
good, we cease to be conformed to him and to 
please him. He is an immutable rule, which 
the changing creature approaches and departs 
from successively. His justice against the bad 
and his love for the good are but the same 
thing ; it is the same goodness that unites itself 
with all that is good, and which is incompatible 
with all that is bad. As for mercy, it is the 
goodness of God, that finding us evil wishes to 
render us good. This mercy, that is felt by us 
in time, is in its source an eternal love of God 
for his creatures. He alone gives the true good- 



4 THAT GOD IS NOW LITTLE KNOWN. 

ness 1—5 woe to the presumptuous soul that hopes 
to find it in itself. It is the love that God has 
for us that gives us all. But the greatest gift 
that he can grant us, is to give us the love that 
we ought to have for him. When God loves 
us so far as to cause us to love him, he reigns 
in us ; he becomes our life, our peace, our hap* 
piness, and we begin already to live his blessed 
life. This love that he has for us bears an in- 
finite character ; He loves not like us with q, 
limited and straitened love ; when he loves, all 
the proceedings of his love are infinite. 

^ ^ ^ 



ADVICE WITH REGARD TO PRAYER, AND THE 
PRINCIPAL EXERCISES OF PIETY. 

The purest prayer is nothing else than the love 
of God. The excellence of this prayer consists 
not in the multitude of the words we pronounce, 
for God knows, without the need of our words, 
our inmost feelings. The true asking then is 
that of the heart, and the heart asks only by its 



EXERCISES OF PIETY. 



5 



desires. To pray then is to desire, but to desire 
what God would have us desire. He who desires 
not from the depths of his heart, makes a falla- 
cious prayer. If he should pass whole days in 
uttering prayers, in meditation, or in exciting 
himself to pious sentiments, he does not truly 
pray, if he does not desire what he asks. Oh 
how few there are who pray ! For where are 
those who desire the true blessings ? These 
blessings are exterior and interior crosses, humilia- 
ation, renunciation of one's own will, death to 
one's self, the reign of God on the ruins of self- 
love. Not to desire these things is not to pray ; 
and to pray, it is necessary to desire them 
seriously, really, constantly, and in reference 
to the whole detail of life ; otherwise prayer is 
only an illusion, like a beautiful dream, in which 
the unhappy person rejoices, thinking that he 
possesses a felicity that is far from him. Alas ! 
how many souls full of themselves, and of an 
imaginary desire of perfection in the midst of all 
their voluntary imperfections, who have never 
prayed this true prayer of the heart. 

On the contrary we never cease to pray, so 
long as we do not cease to have the true love, 
and the true desire in the heart. The love hid- 
1* 



6 



EXERCISES OF PIETY, 



den in the depths of the soul prays withoufceas- 
ing, even when the mind cannot be in actual 
attention : God ceases not to regard in this'soul. 
the desire that himself forms there, and which 
the soul itself does not always perceive. This 
desire in the disposition touches the heart of 
God ; it is a secret voice that attracts without 
ceasing his mercies, it is that spirit that groans io 
us, as St. Paul says, u with groanings that cannot 
be uttered, and it helps our infirmity. 5 ' 

This love entreats God to give us what we 
want, and to have less regard to our frailty, than 
to the sincerity of our intentions. This love 
removes even our slight faults, and purifies us 
like a consuming fire ; it asks in us, and for us, 
that which is according to the will of God. For 
not knowing what we ouo;ht to ask for, we should 
often ask what would be hurtful to us ; we should 
ask certain fervors, sensible satisfactions, and 
certain apparent excellencies, that would only 
serve to nourish in us the natural life, and confi- 
dence in our own strength ; whereas, on the 
other hand, this love by leading us, by giving us 
up to all the operations of grace, and putting us 
in a state of entire surrender with regard to all 



EXERCISES OF PIETY. 



7 



that God shall will to do in us, disposes us for 
all the secret designs of God. 

Then we wish all, and we wish nothing. 
What God shall will to give us is precisely what 
we shall have wished ; for we wish all that he 
wills, and only what he wills. Thus this state 
contains all prayer. It is an operation of the 
heart that embraces every desire. The spirit 
asks in us what the Spirit itself wills to give us. 
Then even when we are occupied without, and 
the necessary engagements of life produce in us 
ail unavoidable distraction, we bear always 
within us a fire which is not extinguished, but 
which on the contrary nourishes a secret prayer, 
that is like a lamp burning without ceasing, 
before the throne of God. If we sleep, our 
heart wakes. Blessed those whom the Lord 
shall find watching. 

# * # # 

As for the time of prayer it should be regula- 
ted by one's leisure, by the occupation, the dis- 
position, and the drawings, of each person. 

Meditation is not prayer, but it is its essential 
foundation. It serves to fill us with the truths 
that God has revealed to us. It is necessary 
therefore to know deeply, not only all the 



\ 



8 



EXERCISES OF PIETY, 



mysteries of Jesus Christ, and the truths of his 
gospel ? but moreover all that these truths ought 
to impress on us personally in order to regene- 
rate us. 

These truths must penetrate us a long time, 
as the dye is gradually imbibed by the wool we 
would color. 

They must become familiar to us, so that by 
seeing them near to us, and at every hour, we 
may be accustomed to judge of nothing, except 
by them ; and they be our only light by which 
to judge in practice, as the rays of the sun are 
the only light for perceiving the figure and color 
of all bodies. 

When these truths have thus become incorpo- 
rated, so to speak, in us, our prayer begins to be 
real and fruitful. Till then it was but the shadow 
of prayer ; we thought that we had a profound 
view of these truths, and yet we did not go 
beyond the outside. All our most lively and 
tender sentiments, all our firmest resolutions, all 
our clearest and most distinct views, were yet 
but a poor and unformed germ of what God 
develops in us. 

When His divine light begins to enlighten us, 
we see in the true light ; then there is no truth 



EXERCISES OF PIETY. 



9 



in which we do not acquiesce at once ; as we 
have no need to reason in order to acknowledge 
the brightness of the sun, as soon as it rises, and 
strikes our eyes. Our union with God in prayer, 
then, must be the fruit of our fidelity in following 
his will ; it is thereby that we can judge of our 
love for him. 

Meditation must become every day more and 
more profound and inward. I say profound, 
because when we meditate humbly on these 
truths, we go deeper and deeper into them to 
discover in them new treasures. I add inward, 
because as we go deeper and deeper in order 
to enter into these truths, they also sink deeper, 
so as to enter even into the substance of our 
souls. Then a single word, quite simply spoken, 
penetrates deeper than whole discourses. 

The same things that had been heard a hun- 
dred times coldly and without any fruit, nourish 
the soul with a hidden manna, and which has 
multiplied and varied tastes for days together. 
Indeed, we must take care not to cease to nour- 
ish ourselves with certain truths by which we 
have been touched. Whilst there remains still 
any relish to us, while they still have any thing 
to give us^ it is a certain sign that we need to 



10 



EXERCISES OF PIETY. 



receive from them. They nourish us even with- 
out any precise and distinct instruction ; they 
are something which effects more than all rea- 
sonings. We see a truth, we love it, we repose 
upon it, it strengthens the heart, it detaches us 
from ourselves, and here we should abide in 
peace as long as we can. 

In time, our reflections and reasonings gradual- 
ly diminish — affectionate sentiments, touching 
views and desires increase. This is an evidence, 
that we have been sufficiently instructed and 
convinced by the spirit. The heart enjoys, is 
nourished, is warmed, is inflamed. A word only 
is necessary to occupy us a long time. 

At last, prayer goes on growing by views 
constantly more simple, and fixed, so that we no 
longer have need of so great a multitude of ob- 
jects and considerations. We are with God as 
with a friend. At first one has a thousand things 
to say to his friend, and a thousand things to 
ask him ; but afterward this detail of conversa- 
tion is exhausted without our being able to ex- 
haust the pleasure of the intercourse. We have 
said all ; but without speaking it is a pleasure 
to be together, to see each other, to feel that we 
are near, to repose in the enjoyment of a sweet 



ON HUMILITY. 



11 



and pure friendship. We are silent, but in this 
silence understand each other. We know that 
we agree in all, and that the two hearts are but 
one. The one is poured without ceasing into 
the other. It is thus that in prayer the inter- 
course with God becomes a simple and familiar 
union that is beyond all discourse. But it is 
necessary that God only should of himself effect 
this sort of prayer in us ; and nothing would be 
more rash, or more dangerous than to venture to 
introduce one's self into it. 



OX HUMILITY, 

How great a help is Humiliation for the 
progress of a soul that truly supports it ! We 
find in it a thousand blessings for ourselves, 
and for our conduct toward others, — for our 
Lord gives his grace to the humble. 

Humility enables us to bear with others. The 
view of our own miseries can alone render us 
compassionate and indulgent toward those of 
others, 



12 



Two considerations taken together will pro- 
duce h'umilitv : the first is the abyss of misery 
from which the powerful hand of God has rescued 
us, and over which he still holds us as it were 
suspended in the air : the second is the presence 
of that God who is all. 

It is only by seeing God. and loving him 
without ceasing, that we forget ourselves, that 
\ve become disabused with regard to that nothing 
'which had dazzled us, and accustomed to hum- 
ble ourselves with consolation before that lofty 
majesty, in which all is swallowed up. Let us 
love God and we shall be humble. Let us 
love God, and we shall no longer love ourselves 
with an inordinate love. Let us love God and 
we shall love all that he would have us love, 
from the love of him. 

The faults most difficult to bear turn to good, 
if we use them to humble ourselves, without 
relaxing our efforts to correct ourselves. Discour- 
agement remedies nothing ; it is only a despair 
of vexed self-love. The true way to profit by 
the humiliation of our faults is to see them in 
all their deformity, without losing hope in God, 
and without ever hoping any thing of ourselves. 
We need most deeply to be humbled by our 



ON HUMILITY* 



13 



faults ; it is Only thereby that God will crush 
our pride, and confound our presumptuous wis- 
dom. When God shall have taken away all 
resource in ourselves, he will erect his edifice ; 
until then he will cast down all, making use even 
of our faults. Let us give ourselves up to him ; 
let us work humbly, without promising ourselves 
anything from our own strength alone. 

We ought to bear with ourselves without self- 
flattery or discouragement. This is a mean 
rarely found. We are apt to promise ourselves 
much from ourselves and our good intention, 
or else despair of all. Let us hope nothing 
from ourselves ; let us expect all of God. The 
despair of our own weakness, which is incorrigi- 
ble, and unreserved confidence in the omnip- 
otence of God, are the true foundations of the 
spiritual edifice. 

It is a false humility, whilst we acknowledge 
ourselves unworthy of the mercies of God, not 
to dare to expect them with confidence. True 
humility consists in seeing all our own unworthi- 
ness, and remaining abandoned to God, not 
doubting that he can effect in us the greatest 
things. If God for his purposes needed to find 
the foundations already laid, we should have 



14 



ON HUMILITY. 



reason to think that our sins had destroyed all 7 
and that we are unworthy of being chosen by 
the divine wisdom. But God needs not to find 
anything in us ; he can never find any thing 
but that which he has placed there by his 
grace. We might say even, that he is pleased 
to choose the unfaithful soul and void of all good, 
to make it the most proper subject to receive his 
mercies ; it is in such they are pleased to flow, 
to manifest themselves more sensibly. Those 
sinful souls which have never felt aught in 
themselves but infirmities, can attribute to them- 
selves nothing of the gifts of God. It is thus 
that God chooses as St. Paul says, the weakest 
things of the world to confound the mighty. Let 
us not fear then, that our unfaithfulness can 
render us unworthy of the mercy of God ; no- 
thing is so worthy of his mercy as a great 
misery. He came from heaven to earth for sin- 
ners, and not for the righteous ; he came to 
seek what was lost without him ; the physician 
seeks the sick and not the well. O how God 
loves those who present themselves with their 
most soiled and tattered garments, and who ask 
of him as of a father a garment worthy of him I 
You wish that God should show you a mild 



ON HUMILITY. 



and smiling countenance, thai you may become 
familiar with him ; and I tell you that when you 
shall open simply your heart with an entire 
familiarity, you will be no longer troubled about 
the countenance he shows you. Let him show 
you as long as he shall j please a countenance 
severe and displeased, submit peaceably to his 
will ; he never loves so much as when he threat- 
ens — for he threatens only to prove, to humble, 
to detach. Is it the consolation only that God 
gives which you seek, or God himself, without 
sensible solace that your heart seeks ? If it 
is the consolation only, you love God not from 
the love of him, but for the love of yourself. 
In that case you deserve nothing of him ; if 
on the contrary you seek God purely, you find 
him still more when he tries you, than when 
he consoles. When he consoles, you have 
reason to fear being more attached to his delights, 
than to himself ; when he treats you rudely, if 
you cease not to remain united to him, it is to 
him alone that you cling. Alas ! how apt are 
we to deceive ourselves ; we are intoxicated 
with a vain consolation when we are supported 
by a sensible enjoyment ; we imagine ourselves 
already ravished into the third heaven, and yet 



16 



ON HUMILITY* 



nothing substantial is accomplished. But when 
we are in a cold and naked faith, we are dis- 
couraged ; but in truth it is at such times that all 
progress is made, provided we are not discour- 
aged. Yield yourself up then to the purposes 
of God ; it is not for you to regulate the treat- 
ment you should receive from him ; he knows 
better than you what you need ; you deserve 
indeed to experience a little coldness, and 
trial — endure them patiently. God does on his 
side what is suitable for him when he repulses 
you ; on your side do also what you ought ; 
which is to love him without expecting him on 
his part to manifest any sensible love. Even 
if he shall not soften, you should abandon your- 
self to his righteous conduct, and adore his de- 
signs of making you expire forsaken on the cross, 
with his well beloved Son, to crown you after- 
ward in heaven with him. This is the solid bread 
of pure faith, and the generous love with which 
you ought to nourish your soul, and which will 
render it robust and vigorous. Persons truly 
humble cannot hear without surprise what tends 
to raise them. Those who truly possess this 
virtue, are gentle and peaceable, have a heart 
contrite and humbled, inclined to mercy and 



ON PRAYER. 



17 



compassion ; they are tranquil, cheerful, obedi- 
ent, vigilant, full of fervor and incapable of 
contradiction ; they always put themselves in the 
lowest rank, they rejoice when they are despised, 
regard all others as above them ; they are indul- 
gent to the weakness of others in view of their 
own, and are very far from preferring themselves 
to any one. It is by the trial of humiliation, 
and contempt, that we can know if we make 
progress in humility. 



ON PRAYER. 

We are tempted to believe that we no longer 
pray to God, when we cease to taste a certain 
pleasure in prayer. That we may be undeceiv- 
ed, we should consider that perfect prayer and 
the love of God are the same thing. 

Prayer then is not a sweet sensation, nor the 
charm of an excited imagination, nor the illu- 
mination of mind which easily discovers in God 
sublime truths, nor even a certain solace in the 
contemplation of God : all these things are ex- 
2* 



18 



ON PRAYER. 



terior gifts, without which love can subsist so^ 
much the more purely, as by being deprived 
of all these things which are but gifts of God, 
we shall become attached solely and immediate- 
ly to Himself. This is the love of pure faith, 
which is desolation to nature, because it leaves 
it no support ; it thinks that all is lost, while it 
is by this very means that all is gained. 

Pure love is in the will alone. Thus it is not 
a love of sentiment, for the imagination has no 
part in it ; it is a love that loves, so to speak, 
without feeling, as pure faith believes without 
seeing. We need not fear that this love may 
be imaginary, for nothing is less so, than the will 
detached from all imagination. The more purely 
intellectual and spiritual are its operations, the 
more they have not only the reality but the 
perfection that God demands. Its operation is 
therefore more perfect, at the same time that faith 
is exercised in it, and humility preserved. 

Then the love is chaste ; for it is God in him- 
self and for himself, and ^not the feelings he im- 
parts, to which we are attached ; we follow him 
but it is not for the multiplied loaves. — What, 
it will be said, shall all piety be made to consist 
in a will to be united to God, which, perhaps 



ON PRAYER* 19 

may be rather a thought and an imagination, 
than an effective will ? 

If this will is not supported by fidelity on all 
important occasions, I will not believe it to be 
true ; for the good tree bears good fruits, and 
xhis will ought to render us attentive to accom- 
plish the will of God. But it is compatible in this 
life with little frailties that God suffers the soul to 
fall into, in order to humble it. If then we ex- 
perience oniy these occasional frailties, we 
should gain from them the fruit of humiliation 
without being discouraged. But, indeed, true 
virtue and true courage are in the will alone. Is 
it not much to wish always the sovereign good 
as soon as we see it ; to turn back our intention 
toward it, whenever we perceive that it is turned 
aside from it ; never deliberately to wish any 
thing except in accordance with it, and finally 
to remain submissive in the spirit of sacrifice, 
and self-surrender to it, when we no longer enjoy 
sensible consolation ? Do you count it nothing 
to suppress all the uneasy reflections of self- 
love, to go on always without anxiously seek- 
ing to see where we are going, and without stop- 
ping ; never to think of ourselves with compla- 
cency, or at least never to think of ourselves 



20 



ON PRAYER. 



except as we would of another, in order to fulfil 
a necessary duty in the present moment without 
looking farther ? Is it not thus that the death of 
the old man within us is accomplished, rather 
than by fine reflections in which we are occupied 
still with ourselves, through self-love, and rather y 
too, than by many exterior works about which 
we might have satisfactory evidence of our ad- 
vancement ? 

It is by a kind of unfaithfulness to the attrac- 
tion of pure faith, that we wish always to be 
assured that we do well ; it is wishing to know 
what we are doing ; which we never shall know, 
and which God would not have us know ; it is 
amusing ourselves upon the way, with reason- 
ing about the way itself. The surest and short- 
est way is to renounce, to forget, to abandon 
ourselves, and through fidelity to God think no 
more about ourselves. All religion consists onlv 
in going out of ourselves and our self-love to 
tend to God. 

As for involuntary distractions, they do not 
turn aside our love, since it is in the will, and the 
will never suffers distractions, when it does not 
choose to have them. As soon as they are 
observed, we dismiss them and turn toward God, 



ON PRAYER. 



21 



Thus, while the exterior senses of the spouse are 
asleep, her heart wakes, her love does not lan- 
guish. A tender father does not always think 
distinctly of his son ; a thousand objects attract 
his imagination and his thoughts ; but his distrac- 
tions never interrupt his paternal love ; whenever 
his son comes into his mind he loves him, and 
feels at the bottom of his heart that he has not 
ceased for a single moment to love him, although 
he has ceased to think of him. Such should 
be our love for our Heavenly Father ; a simple 
love without distrust, and without uneasiness. 

If our imagination wanders, if our mind is 
drawn away, let us not be troubled ; all these 
powers are not the true man of the heart, the 
hidden man of whom St. Peter speaks, which is 
in the incorruptibility of a modest and quiet 
spirit. We have only to make a good use of our 
free thoughts by turning them always towards the 
presence of the Beloved, without making our- 
selves uneasy about the others ; it is for God to 
increase when he shall please, this sensible fa- 
cility of preserving his presence. Often he 
deprives us of it for our advancement, for 
this facility amuses us by too many reflec- 
tions ; which are the real distractions that inter- 



22 



ON PRAYER. 



rupt the simple and direct view of God, and 
thereby take us out of the darkness of pure 
faith. 

We often seek in these reflections the repose 
of self-love, and satisfaction in the testimony we 
wish to render to ourselves. Thus we are dis- 
tracted by this sensible fervor. And, on the 
contrary, we never pray so purely as when we 
are tempted to believe that we no longer pray. 
Then we fear that we do not pray aright, but we 
ought only to fear giving ourselves up to the 
desolation of timorous nature, to the philosophi- 
cal infidelity which always wishes to demonstrate 
to itself its own operations in faith, and finally to 
impatient desires, of seeing and feeling in order 
to be consoled. There is no penitence more 
bitter than this state of pure faith without sensi- 
ble support ; from which I conclude that it is the 
penitence, the most effective, the most crucifying, 
the most exempt from all illusion. Strange 
temptation ! we desire impatiently sensible con- 
solation, from fear of not being penitent enough ! 
Ah, why do we not take for a penance the 
renunciation of the consolation we are so much 
tempted to seek ? 

Finally, we should remember Jesus Christ 



ON PRAYER. 



23 



whom his Father abandoned on the cross ; 
God withdrew all feeling and all reflection to 
hide himself from Jesus Christ ; this was the 
last blow of the hand of God that smote the 
man of grief. It was this that completed 
the sacrifice. We should never abandon our- 
selves so entirely to God, as when he seems 
to abandon us. Let us then take the light 
and consolation when he imparts them ; but 
without being too much attached to them. 
When he plunges us in the night of pure faith, 
let us resign ourselves to this darkness in which 
all is agony. One moment is worth a thousand, 
in this tribulation. We are troubled and we are 
at peace. Not only God hides himself, but he 
hides us from ourselves that all may be in faith. 
We feel discouraged ; and yet we have an im- 
moveable will, that wishes every thing painful 
that God wills. We wish all, we accept all, even 
the trouble by which we are tried. Thus we are 
secretly at peace, by that will which is preserved 
in the depths of the soul, in the bitterest of its 
troubles. Blessed be God ! who effects in us 
so great things, notwithstanding our un wor- 
th in ess. 



21 



OK MEDITATION. 



OX MEDITATION 

It is certain that when we have laid a solid 
foundation of an entire conversion of the heart, 
of a strict penitence, and of a serious medita- 
tion of all the virtues of Christianity, in detail 
and with relation to practice, we by degrees 
become so accustomed to all these truths, that at 
last we have a fixed and simple view of them, 
without being obliged to recommence, continual- 
ly, the work of convincing ourselves of each 
one in particular. Then these truths are all 
united in a certain apprehension of God, so 
pure and so intimate, that we find all in him. 
In this state, it is not so much the mind seeking 
and reasoning, as the will loving and absorbed 
in the infinite good. But this state is not yours. 
You must go on for a long time in the way of 
sinners who are beginningto seek God ; ordinary 
meditation is your portion . Too happy that God 
deigns to admit you to this. 

Go forward then in spirit, like Abraham, 
without knowing whither you are going. Con- 
tent yourself with the daily bread, and remem- 



ON MEDITATION. 



ber that in the desert the manna that was gather- 
ed for more than one day, was corrupted at 
once. So true is it that the children of God 
should confine themselves within the order of 
present graces, without wishing to anticipate the 
designs of Providence with regard to them. 

Meditate, then (since it is now for you the 
time for meditation.) on all the mysteries of 
Jesus Christ and all the truths of the Gospel, 
so long unknown and contradicted by you. 
When God shall have completely effaced in 
you, the impression of all worldly maxims, and 
when the spirit of Jesus Christ shall leave 
within you no trace of your former prejudices, 
then it will be necessary to examine the tendency 
that grace shall give you, and follow it step by 
step, without anticipating it. In the mean time, 
remain in peace in the bosom of God as a little 
child in the lap and arms of its mother. Con- 
tent yourself with thinking of your subjects of 
meditation in a simple and easy manner. Give 
yourself up gently to the truths that shall affect 
you and which you feel are nourishing to your 
heart. 

# # * * 



26 



ON MEDITATION, 



You should give to each truth time to take 
deep root in the heart. The essential point is 
to love. Nothing causes so great indigestion as 
to eat much and hastily. Digest then, at leisure, 
each truth if you wish to draw from it the means 
of nourishing yourself ; but with no uneasy 
reflections upon yourself. Reckon that your 
prayer will be good only so far as you make it 
without being excited and anxious. I well know 
that you will not fail to experience distractions of 
mind. But you have only to support them 
without impatience, and allow them to disappear, 
so as to remain attentive to your subject, when- 
ever you perceive the wandering of your imag- 
ination. Thus these involuntary distractions will 
not injure you ; and the patience with which 
you shall endure them without being discouraged, 
will advance you more than a luminous prayer 
in which you may take more delight. The true 
way to conquer these distractions, is not to 
attack them directly and with vexation, nor to 
be discouraged either at their length or their 
frequency. 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



27 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 

If you would understand well what it is to 
renounce one's self, you have only to remember 
the difficulty you felt within yourself, and which 
you showed quite naturally, when I spoke of 
counting for nothing that me which is so dear to 
us. To renounce self is to count ourselves as 
nothing ; and whoever feels the difficulty of this, 
has already comprehended in what consists this 
renunciation against which all nature revolts. 
Since you have felt the stroke, you must have 
found the diseased part of your heart. It is for 
you to yield to the all powerful hand of God, 
which will be able to tear you from yourself. 

The essence of our distemper is that we 
love ourselves with a blind love which amounts 
to idolatry. All that we love without, we love 
only for ourselves. We must undeceive our- 
selves with regard to all those generous friend- 
ships in which we appear to forget ourselves, 
so as to think only of the persons to whom we 
are attached. When we do not seek a base and 
coarse interest in the intercourse of friendship, we 



28 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



seek another interest which in being more deli- 
cate, more concealed, and more worthy in the 
eyes of the world, is for this reason only the 
more dangerous, and more capable of poisoning 
us by nourishing better our self-love. 

We seek then in these friendships which 
appear to others and ourselves so generous and 
so disinterested, the pleasure of loving without 
interest, and of rising by this noble sentiment 
above all weak hearts, and which are attached 
to sordid interest. Besides this testimony that 
we wish to render to ourselves to flatter our 
pride, we seek also in the world the glory of 
disinterestedness and generosity ; w r e seek to 
be loved by our friends, although we do not 
seek their services. We hope that they will be 
charmed by all that we do for them without 
reference to self. And in this very way we 
find that reference to self that we seemed to 
abandon ; for what is there more sweet and 
flattering to a considerate and refined self-love 
than to see itself applauded, so as not to pass for 
self-love. 

We see a person who is wholly devoted to 
others and not at all to himself, the delight of 
virtuous people, gentle, and seemingly forgetful 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 29 

of self. Self-forgetfulness is so great, that self- 
love even wishes to imitate it, and finds no glory 
like that of not appearing to seek any. This 
moderation and detachment from self, that would 
be the death of nature if it were a real and effec- 
tive sentiment, becomes on the contrary, the 
most subtle, and imperceptible aliment of a pride 
that despises all the ordinary means of elevating 
itself, and which wishes to trample under foot all 
the grosser subjects of vanity, by which the rest 
of mankind are puffed up. But it is easy to 
unmask this modest pride, although in no aspect 
it shows itself to be pride, so entirely 1% seems 
to have renounced all that which flatters others. 
If it is condemned, it receives the condemnation 
with impatience ; if those whom it loves and 
serves, do not pay it with friendship, esteem, and 
confidence, it is touched to the quick. You see 
thus it is not disinterested though it strives to 
appear so ; it is indeed not paid with a coin so 
gross as others ; it requires neither insipid prais- 
es, nor money, nor the fortune which consists 
in offices and exterior dignities ; it wishes never- 
theless to be paid — it is greedy of the esteem of 
virtuous people; it wishes to love, in short, that 

others may love it and be touched with its 
3 # 



30 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



disinterestedness ; it appears to forget itself only 
the better to draw the regard of all others to 
itself. It does not indeed make all these reflec- 
tions in an explicit way ; it does not say I wish 
to deceive every body by my disinterestedness, 
in order that all may love and admire me. No 
it would not venture to say to itself things so 
gross and unworthy. But it deceives itself while 
deceiving others ; it looks at itself with compla- 
cency in its disinterestedness, as a beautiful 
woman in a mirror. The person is affected with a 
tender feeling toward himself, seeing himself 
more sincere, and disinterested than the rest of 
men. The illusion that he sheds upon others is 
reflected upon himself. He passes himself off 
upon others, only for what he thinks himself to 
be, that is, disinterested ; and this is the very 
thing which flatters him most. 

If we will examine ourselves with any degree 
of seriousness, to observe what saddens and what 
flatters us, we shall easily perceive that pride has 
different tastes, according as it is more gross or 
more delicate. But pride, whatever may be 
its taste, is always pride, and that which ap- 
pears the most moderate and the most reason- 
able, is the most diabolical. For in esteeming 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



31 



itself it despises others, it pities people who 
take delight in foolish vanities. It knows the 
emptiness of greatness, and of the highest ranks. 
It cannot endure people who are intoxicated 
with their fortune, it wishes by its moderation to 
be above fortune itself, and thereby to gain for 
itself a new degree of elevation, to leave at its 
feet all the false glory of the human race. It 
wishes like Lucifer, to become like the Most 
High. The man wishes to be a kind of divinity 
above the passions and interests of men ; and 
he does not perceive that he puts himself above 
men by this deceitful pride that blinds us. 

Let us conclude, then, that it is the love of 
God alone which can carry us out of ourselves. 
If the powerful hand of God does not sustain us, 
we cannot set our foot, or take a step out of 
ourselves. There is no middle way ; we must 
refer all to God, or to ourselves. If we refer all 
to ourselves, we have no other God than that 
self of which I have said so much ; if on the 
contrary we refer all to God, we are in the true 
order; and then regarding ourselves only as we 
do other creatures, without any interest of our 
own, arid with the sole view of fulfilling the 



32 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



will of God, we enter into that renunciation of 
self which you wish to comprehend. 

But once more, nothing would close your 
heart so much against the grace of renuncia- 
tion as that philosophical pride, and that self- 
love disguised as generosity, which you ought to 
suspect in yourself on account of the natural 
tendency and habit you have that way. The 
more one has in his natural disposition a ground 
of frankness, disinterestedness, pleasure in doing 
good, delicacy of sentiment, relish for sincerity 
and disinterested friendship, the more he ought 
try to keep self clear of self, and fear to please 
himself with his natural gifts. 

What makes it impossible for any creature to 
deliver us from ourselves is, that there is none 
that deserves that we should prefer it to oar- 
selves. There is none that has either the right 
to take us from ourselves, or the perfection that 
would be necessary to attach us to itself with- 
out reference to ourselves ; or, finally, the power 
of satisfying our hearts in this attachment. 
Thence it comes that we love nothing out of 
ourselves, except with reference to self. We 
choose, either according to our gross and brutal 
passions, if we are brutal and gross ; or according 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



33 



to the relish our pride has for glory, if we have 
delicacy enough not to content ourselves with 
what is brutal and gross. 

But God does two things that he alone can 
do. The one is to show himself to us with all 
his rights over his creatures, and with all the 
charms of his goodness. We feel that we have 
not made ourselves, and that thus we are not 
made for ourselves ; that we are made for the 
glory of Him who has been pleased to make 
us ; that he is too great to make any thing ex- 
cept for himself, and that thus all our perfection 
and all our happiness is to love ourselves in 
him. 

This is what no creature, however dazzling, 
can ever make us feel for itself. Very far 
from finding in it that infinity which fills and 
transports us in God, we always find, on the 
contrary, in the creature, a void and incapacity 
to fill our hearts, a degree of perfection which 
allows us constantly to fall back into ourselves. 

The second miracle that God performs, is, 
to move our hearts according to his pleasure, 
after having enlightened our minds. He does not 
content himself with showing himself infinitely 
lovely ; but he causes himelf to be loved by 



34 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



producing by his grace, his love in our hearts. 
Thus he himself accomplishes in us what he 
makes us see we owe to him. 

You will say perhaps that you would like to 
know, in a more distinct and detailed manner, 
what it is thus to renounce self. 

I will try to satisfy you. 

We easily comprehend that we ought to 
renounce criminal pleasures, unjust fortunes, 
and gross vanities ; because the renunciation of 
all these things consists in a contempt which 
rejects them absolutely, and which condemns all 
enjoyment of them. But it is not as easy to 
comprehend the renunciation of goods lawfully 
acquired, and the enjoyment of a virtuous and 
modest life ; and finally, of the honors which 
come from a good reputation, and a virtue that 
rises above envy. 

What makes it difficult to understand that 
these things must be renounced is, that we 
should not reject them with abhorrence ; but, on 
the contrary must preserve them, in order to make 
use of them according to the condition in which 
Divine Providence places us. 

We have need of the consolations of a pleasant 
and peaceful life as a solace in the troubles of 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



35 



our condition. As for honors, regard should be 
had to the decencies and proprieties of life. It 
is necessary to keep our possessions for the 
supply of our wants. How then renounce all 
these things while we are occupied with the 
care of preserving them ? 

We must, without passion, do moderately 
what we can to preserve these things in order 
to make a sober use of them, and not wish to 
enjoy them, and set our heart upon them. 

I say a sober use, because when we do not 
attach ourselves to a thing with passion, to 
enjoy it and seek in it our happiness, we take 
of it, what we cannot help taking, as you see a 
wise and faithful steward studies to take of the 
goods of his master, only what is precisely neces- 
sary for his true needs. 

Thus the way to renounce bad things is to 
reject the use of them with abhorrence, and the 
way to renounce what is good is never to use it 
but with moderation, for our wants, studying 
at the same time to retrench all the imaginary 
wants with which greedy nature wishes to 
please itself. 

Remark, that it is necessary to renounce not 
only bad things, but good ones also ; for Jesus 



36 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



Christ says, without restriction, whoever doth 
not renounce all that he hath cannot be my 
disciple. Every Christian must renounce there- 
fore all that he possesses, even things the most 
innocent, since they would cease to be so if he 
did not renounce them. 

He must therefore renounce even the things 
that he is obliged to preserve with great care, as 
the good of his family, or his own reputation,, 
since he ought to cling with his heart to none 
of these things. He ought to keep them only for 
a sober and moderate use, and finally, he should 
be ready to lose them whenever Providence may 
choose to deprive him of them. 

He ought even to renounce the persons he 
loves the most, and whom he is bound to love. 
And see, in what this renunciation consists. It is 
in loving them only for God ; in using soberly and 
for the needs of consolation their friendship ; 
in being ready to lose them, when God shall 
will it ; and never wishing to seek in them the 
true repose of the heart. This is that chastity 
of true christian friendship, which seeks only the 
sacred spouse in the mortal and terrestrial friend. 
In this state we use the creature, and the world 
as not abusing them, according to the words of St. 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



37 



Paul ; we wish not to enjoy, we only use what 
God gives us and wills that we should love. 
But we use it with the moderation of a heart 
which uses it only for necessity, and reserves 
itself for a more worthy object. It is in this 
sense that Jesus Christ would have us leave 
father, mother, brothers, sisters and friends, and 
that he has come to bring the sword into the 
midst of families. 

God is jealous. If you cling from the depth 
of your heart to any creature, your heart is no 
longer worthy of him. He rejects it as a wife, who 
is divided between her husband and a stranger. 

After having renounced all that is around 
us, and that is not ourselves, we must come to 
the last sacrifice, that is, of all which is in us, 
and ourselves. 
M The renunciation of the body is terrible to 
most delicate and worldly persons. These weak 
persons know of nothing that is more them- 
selves, so to speak, than their bodies, which they 
flatter and adorn with so much care. Often these 
same persons having become disabused with 
regard to the graces of the body, preserve a 
love for their bodily life ; which amounts to a 
shameful cowardice, and makes them shudder 



38 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



at the name of death. I think that your natural 
courage raises you sufficiently above these fears. 
It seems to me I hear you say, I wish neither to 
flatter my body, nor hesitate to consent to its 
destruction, when God shall choose to turn it 
to dust. But, although the body is thus re- 
nounced, there remain great difficulties in re- 
nouncing one's mind. The more we despise 
this body of clay by a natural courage, the more 
are we tempted to esteem what we bear within, 
that can thus despise the body. We feel with 
regard to our mind, our wisdom, and our virtue, 
as a young worldly woman about her beauty. 
It fills us with complacency ; we are pleased with 
ourselves for being wise, moderate, preserved 
from the intoxication of others ; and thereby 
even we are intoxicated with the pleasure of 
not appearing intoxicated with prosperity ; we 
renounce by a moderation full of courage the 
enjoyment of all that the world has most flatter- 
ing ; but we wish to enjoy this very moderation. 
Oh, how dangerous is this state ; how subtle is this 
poison ; oh, how much you would be wanting 
to God, if you gave yourself up to this refine- 
ment of self-love. You should renounce there- 
fore all enjoyment, and all natural complacency 



ON SELF RENUNCIATION. 



39 



in your wisdom and your virtue. Observe 
that the purer are the gifts of God, the more 
jealous is he of them. 

# * * # 

Whoever regards a grace with complacency 
and a certain pleasure of appropriation, turns 
it into poison. 

Never appropriate to yourself therefore, not 
only exterior things, as favor, or your talents, 
but not even interior gifts. Your good will 
is no less a gift of mercy than the being and 
the life that come from God. Live then as 
if on borrowed goods. All that is in you, and 
all that is yourself are only lent you. Make 
use of them according to the intention of the 
lender ; but never dispose of them as of a pos- 
session that is your own. It is in this spirit of 
disappropriation, and simple use of ourselves and 
of our minds, to follow the movements of God, 
who is the sole proprietor of his creature, that 
the solid renunciation of ourselves consists. 

You will probably ask me what should be 
in detail the practice of this disappropriation, 
and this renunciation. But I answer you, that 
this sentiment is no sooner in the depth of the 
will, than God himself leads the soul, as by the 



40 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



hand, so as to exercise it in this renunciation on 
all occasions of the day. It is not by painful 
reflections and continual strivings that we re- 
nounce self ; it is only by abstaining from seek- 
ing, and wishing to possess ourselves in our own 
way, that we lose ourselves in God. 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



When I said, that whoever is not attached 
to self by the will, is truly detached, my object 
was to prevent or cure the scruples that some 
may feel with regard to reference to self. Souls 
faithful to renounce themselves, are often troubled 
by certain views of self-interest that they have 
in acting or speaking. They fear that they 
have not enough resisted a vain self-complacency, 
some motive of reputation, or enjoyment of some 
advantage, or some degree of self-seeking in the 
consolations of virtue. All this distresses a 
tender soul with fears, and it makes it matter 
of accusation against itself. In order to give 
confidence to such a soul, it is good to say to it, 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



41 



that all good and ill are in the will. When 
this reference to self is involuntary, it does not 
prevent our being truly detached from self. 

But when we are really detached from self, you 
will say, can we have involuntarily those views 
of our own interest that are matters of the will. 

To this, I reply, that it is rare that a soul 
truly detached from self and attached to God, 
seeks itself still for its own interest with deliberate 
purpose. But it is necessary, in order to give it 
freedom, and hinder it from being continually 
upon thorns, to know once for all, that involun- 
tary reflections upon our own interest do not 
render us disagreeable to God, any more than 
other temptations to which we do not give our 
consent. Besides, it should be understood, that 
persons who have sincere piety, but who are 
not entirely dead to worldly advantage, or 
friendship, are apt to yield a little to some self- 
seeking on all subjects. They do not give into 
it directly and openly ; but they suffer them- 
selves to be drawn away occasionally. They 
still cling to self in all these things ; and an 
evident proof of this is, that, if these supports 
of nature are shaken, they are in trouble and 

distress. If any accident troubles the repose of 
4# 



42 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



our life, threatens our reputation, or separates 
from us those whose friendship we prize, we 
feel a poignant grief, that shows how much life 
and sensibility our self-love still has. 

We cling then to ourselves almost without 
perceiving it, and the occasions of loss only dis- 
cover to us the true state of our heart. It is only 
as God tears them from us, or seems to do so, 
that we lose an unjust and hurtful property in 
them by the sacrifice that we make of them 
to him. 

All that we call a moderate use does not give 
us such an assurance of our detachment, as we 
have by bearing it calmly when we are deprived 
of them. It is only the loss, and the loss that 
God himself causes, that effects a true re- 
nunciation. 

In this state of sincere but still imperfect piety, 
there is a multitude of ways in which we seek 
ourselves. There is a time in which w T e do not 
yet see these distinctly, and when God permits 
the interior light to go no farther than the strength 
for sacrifice. Jesus Christ says within us what 
he said to his apostles ; " I have many other 
things to make known to you ; but you cannot 
bear them now." 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 43 



We see in ourselves good intentions that are 
real ; but we should be frightened if we could 
see to how many things we still cling. It is 
not with a full will, and knowingly, that we have 
these attachments, We do not say to ourselves, 
1 have them and I choose to have them ; but still 
we do have them, and sometimes even we fear 
we may search too deep and find them. We 
feel our weakness, and dare not penetrate 
farther. Sometimes also we would like to find 
all in order to sacrifice all. But it is an indis- 
creet and rash zeal, like that of Peter, who said 
I am ready to die, and yet a servant girl frighten- 
ed him. We seek to discover all our weak- 
nesses, and God tenderly spares us in this our 
seeking. He refuses to us a light too advanced 
for our condition. He does not permit us to 
see in our hearts what it is not yet time to eradi- 
cate from them. It is an admirable forbearance 
of the goodness of God, never to solicit us within 
to sacrifice to him any thing that we have 
hitherto loved and possessed, without imparting 
to us the necessary light for this purpose, or 
giving us the light of sacrifice without affording 
the necessary strength. Till then, it is with us 
with regard to this sacrifice, as with the Apos- 



44 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



ties with regard to what Jesus Christ predicted 
to them of his death ; they understood nothing 
of it, and their eyes were closed to the light. 
The souls, the most upright and most watch- 
ful against their defects, are still in this state of 
obscurity, with regard to certain detachments 
that God reserves for a more advanced state 
of faith and death. We should not wish to 
anticipate the time for these, and it is sufficient 
to remain at peace, provided we are faithful in 
all that we know. If there remains any thing 
to know, God will discover it to us. 

In the mean time God hides from us, with a 
veil of mercy, what we should not yet be able 
to bear. We have a certain impatient zeal for 
our own perfection, we would choose at once to 
see all and to sacrifice all. But an humble ex- 
pectation under the hand of God and gently 
bearing with ourselves, without self flattery in 
this state of darkness and dependence, are infi- 
nitely more useful to us in dying to self, than all 
these uneasy efforts to advance our perfection. 
Let us then content ourselves with following, 
without looking farther, all the light that is given 
to us from one moment to another. It is the 
daily bread. God only gives it for each day. 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



45 



It is the manna too ; he who wishes to take a 
double portion, and make provision for the mor- 
row, commits a great mistake ; it will spoil in 
his hands, and he will eat no more than he who 
has taken his portion only for the day. 

It is this dependence like that of a child 
upon its father, to which God wishes to mould 
us even in regard to our spiritual wants. He 
dispenses to us the interior light, as a wise mother 
would assign to her daughter her tasks. She 
would not give to her a new one, until the first 
were finished. Have you finished all that God 
has set before you ? Instantly then will he 
present to you a new work, for he never leaves 
the soul idle, and without progress in the work 
of detachment. ]f on the contrary you have 
not yet finished the first work, he hides from 
you what is to follow. A traveller who is pass- 
ing over a vast and level country, sees nothing 
beyond a little height that bounds the horizon 
at a distance. When he has arrived at this 
height, he discovers at once a new extent of 
country as vast as the first. So in the path of 
self-denial and self-renunciation, we imagine 
that we discover all at the first glance ; we 
think that we reserve nothing, and cling neither 



46 



OX DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



to self, nor anything else. We would choose 
rather to die, than hesitate to make a universal 
sacrifice. But in this daily detail God shews us, 
without ceasing, new countries. We find in 
our hearts a thousand things we would have 
declared were not there. God shews them to 
us, only as he casts them out. It is like an ab- 
scess that breaks ; the moment when it breaks 
is the only one that fills us with disgust ; before, 
we had it within, without feeling it, and did not 
believe that we had it ; it nevertheless was 
there, and it breaks only because it was there. 
When it was concealed, we thought ourselves 
well and sound. The moment when it breaks 
is the salutary moment, though painful and dis- 
gusting. Every one bears at the bottom of his 
heart a mass of corruption, which would make 
us die with shame, if God shewed us all its 
poison and loathsomeness ; self-love would be 
exposed to an intolerable punishment. I speak 
not here of those who have their hearts gan- 
grened by enormous vices. I speak of souls that 
appear upright and pure. We should see a 
foolish vanity that dares not discover itself, and 
remains through shame in the inmost recesses of 
the heart. We should see self-complacency, 



ON DETACHMENT FROM SELF. 



47 



the haughtiness of pride, delicate subtleties of 
self-love and a thousand other interior recesses, 
which are as real as inexplicable. We shall see 
them only as God begins to cast them out. 
* * # # 

Let us submit therefore to the work of God 
within, and content ourselves with being faithful 
to the light of the present moment. It brings 
with it all that is necessary to prepare us for the 
light of the moment which follows ; and this 
succession of graces that are linked together 
like the rings of a chain, prepares us insensibly for 
the distant sacrifices of which we had not caught 
sight. That death to ourselves, and to all that 
we love, which is yet general and superficial in 
our will, after having pierced its surface, will 
send down its roots far into the depths of this 
will. It will penetrate even to the centre ; it 
will leave nothing to the creature. It will 
thrust out, unsparingly, all that is not God. 

Finally, be persuaded upon the word of 
another, until experience shall make you 
taste and feel it yourself, that this detach- 
ment from self, and from all that we love, 
very far from destroying good friendship, 
and hardening the heart, produces on 



48 



ON SADNESS. 



the contrary, in God, a friendship not only pure 
and solid, but cordial, faithful, affectionate, full 
of a sweet sympathy ; and that there are found 
in it all the delights of friendship that nature 
itself seeks for its consolation. 



ON SADNESS. 



With regard to a certain sadness, which 
weighs down and depresses the heart, there are 
two rules that it appears to me important to ob- 
serve. The first is to remedy it by the means 
that Providence furnishes us. For example, not 
to overburden ourselves with difficult affairs, 
that we may not sink under an excessive weight, 
to husband the strength not only of the body, 
but of the mind also, by not taking upon ourselves 
matters in which we should count too much 
on our own courage; to reserve for ourselves 
hours for prayer, for reading, the cheering 
influence of good conversation ; and even have 
recourse to diversions in order to relax at the 



ON SADNESS, 



same time, the mind with the body according to 
our need. 

# $ m # 

The second rule is to bear peaceably all the 
involuntary impressions of sadness that we suffer 
from without, notwithstanding the helps and pre- 
cautions that we have just mentioned, 

Interior and unpremeditated discouragements 
help to advance us more quickly in the way of 
faith than all else, provided we are not stopped 
by them, and the voluntary weakness of the 
soul does not give it up to that melancholy that 
takes possession, as by force, of all within. 

A step taken in this state is always a giant 
stride. It is worth a thousand in a more a^ree- 
able and happy state. We have then only 
to despise our discouragement, and still go on 
to render this state of weakness more use- 
ful and greater than that of courage and the 
most heroic strength. O how deceitful is that 
conscious courage which renders every thing 
easy, and which bears every thing, which 
is pleased with itself that it never hesitates ! 
Oh, how it nourishes confidence in self, and a 
certain elevation of heart ! This courage, that 
sometimes is wonderfully edifying to the pub- 



50 



ON SADNESS. 



lie, nourishes within a certain satisfaction, and 
a testimony to ourselves, which is a very sub- 
tle poison. 

We have a consciousness of our own virtue, 
we wish to possess it ; we have a feeling of 
satisfaction in our own strength* 

A soul weakened and humbled, that finds no 
resource in itself, that fears, is troubled, sorrow- 
ful even unto death like Jesus in the garden ; 
finally, which cries out like him on the cross, 
"Oh God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," 
is much more purified, more withdrawn from 
self, more annihilated and dead to all desires of 
its own, than those strong souls that enjoy in 
peace the fruits of their own virtue. 

Happy the soul which God casts down, which 
God overwhelms, from which he takes all strength 
in itself, that it may find support in him alone ; 
which sees its poverty, is content with it ; which 
bears beside its outward crosses, the great in- 
terior cross of involuntary discouragement, with- 
out which all others would have no weight. 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 51 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 

1. You find difficulty on two points. The 
one is to avoid distraction of mind ; the other to 
sustain yourself against melancholy. As for this 
distraction, you will not cure it by forced reflec- 
tions. Do not hope to do the work of grace by 
the contrivances and efforts of nature. Content 
yourself with giving yourself without reserve to 
God, and never look upon any painful condition, 
that you would not accept in entire submission 
to his divine providence. 

Never indeed go forward to meet these cru- 
cifying thoughts ; but when God permits them 
to come to you without your seeking, never let 
them pass without fruit. 

Accept, in spite of the repugnances and shrink- 
ings of nature, all that God presents to your 
mind, as a trial by which he might exercise 
your faith. Never distress yourself to know, 
if you would have the strength to execute 
whenjjthe occasion comes, what you desire to do 
at a distance ; the present occasion will have its 
graces, but the grace of the moment in which 



52 DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



you look upon these crosses, is to accept them 
cheerfully, at the time when God shall give them 
to you. 

This foundation laid, go forward tranquilly 
and with confidence. Provided this disposition 
of your will be not changed by voluntary at- 
tachments to any thing contrary to the divine 
order, it will be permanent. 

Your imagination will wander over a thou- 
sand vain objects ; it will even be more or less 
agitated, according to the places where you may 
be, and as it may have been disturbed by ob- 
jects more or less exciting. 

But what matter ? The imagination, as St. 
Theresa says, is the fool of the house ; it ceases 
not to make noise and confusion ; the mind too 
is drawn away by it ; it cannot help seeing the 
images that it presents. Its attention to the 
images is unavoidable ; and this attention is a 
real distraction ; but provided it is involuntary, 
it never separates from God. It is only the dis- 
traction of the will that does all the harm. 

When you shall not perceive any distraction, 
it will never be a distraction of the heart. As 
soon as you perceive it, you will raise your 
eyes to God. The fidelity you shall have in 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 53 



returning to his presence every time you per- 
ceive your state, will procure for you the grace 
of a more frequent presence ; and it is, if I 
do not deceive myself, the way to render soon 
this presence familiar. 

This fidelity in turning away from other ob- 
jects whenever we perceive the distraction, will 
not long be in a soul without the gift of a fre- 
quent and easy communion with God. But 
you must not imagine that you can enter into 
this state by your own efforts. This striving 
would render you constrained, scrupulous, uneasy 
in the business and conversation in which you 
need to be free. You would always be in fear 
that the presence of God would escape you ; 
always running to recover it. You would en- 
velop yourself in the phantoms of your own 
imagination. Thus the presence of God, which 
ought by its sweetness and enlightening influ- 
ence to facilitate your application to all the other 
objects that we need to consider in the order of 
God, would render you on the contrary always 
agitated, and almost incapable of the exterior 
duties of your condition. Never be distressed 
therefore that this sensible presence of God has 
escaped from you ; but especially do not desire 
5* 



54 DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



a sense of the presence of God founded on 
reasonings, and sustained by too many reflec- 
tions. 

Content yourself in the course of the day and 
in the detail of your occupations, with a general 
and interior view of God ; so that if at that 
time you should be asked what is the disposition 
of your heart, it should be true to say that it 
tends to God, although you might at the time 
be attending to some other object. 

Do not distress yourself about the wanderings 
of your imagination that you cannot restrain. 
Persons are often distracted by fear of distrac- 
tion, and then by regret for having experienced 
it. What would you say of a man who on a 
journey instead of going forward always without 
stopping, should pass his time in anticipating 
the falls he might meet with, and when one hap- 
pens should turn back to view the place where 
he fell ? 

Go on, go constantly forward, you would say 
to him, go on, without looking behind you, and 
without stopping. " Walk " says the apostle, 
u so as to abound more and more." The 
abundance of the love of God will serve for your 
correction, more than your anxiety and eager 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 55 



reflections upon yourself. This rule is simple ; 
but nature accustomed to do every thing by 
feeling and reflection, finds it simple in the ex- 
treme. We would choose to help ourselves 
and give ourselves more activity. But it is in 
this respect that the rule is a good one, that it 
keeps us in a state of pure faith, in which we 
lean only on God, to whom we abandon our- 
selves, and in which we die to ourselves by sup- 
pressing all that belongs to self. 

In this way exterior observances are not mul- 
tiplied, which might be a constraint upon per- 
sons much occupied, or might injure the health ; 
these are all changed to loving, but loving sim- 
ply ; then nothing is done but what love directs 
us to do ; thus we are never over-burdened ; for 
we bear only what we love. This rule well 
adopted is thus sufficient to cure sadness. 

2. Often sadness arises from this cause ; that 
seeking God we are not sensible enough of his 
presence to satisfy ourselves. To wish to have 
this sense of his presence is not to wish to possess 
him ; but it is wishing to be assured from love 
of ourselves, for our own solace, that we possess 
him. Nature cast down and discouraged, is 
impatient to escape out of the state of pure 



56 DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



faith in which every support fails it. It is as 
if in the air, and wishes to feel its advancement. 
At the sight of its faults, pride is vexed, and this 
vexation of pride is taken for a sentiment of 
penitence. We wish through self-love to have 
the pleasure of seeing ourselves perfect ; we 
rail at ourselves that we are not so ; we are im- 
patient, haughty, and ill-humored toward our- 
selves and others. Deplorable error ! as if the 
work of God could be accomplished by our 
moroseness; as if we could be united to the 
God of peace by losing interior peace ! Martha ! 
Martha ! why art thou troubled about so many 
things for the service of Jesus Christ ? One 
thing only is necessary, which is to love him, 
and sit attentive at his feet ! When we are en- 
tirely given up to God, every thing is done with- 
out doing any thing useless ; we suffer ourselves 
to be conducted with confidence. For the fu- 
ture we wish without reserve all that God wills ; 
we shut our eyes that we may see nothing 
superfluous ; and in the mean time we apply 
ourselves to accomplish his will in the present. 

Sufficient for each day is its good and ill. 
This daily fulfilment of the will of God is the 
coming of his kingdom within us, and at the 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 57 



same time our daily bread. We should think 
ourselves unbelieving and guilty of a pagan 
distrust, if we wished to penetrate into that future 
which God hides from us. We leave it to him ; 
it is for him to make it sweet or bitter, short or 
long. Let him do what seems good in his eyes. 

The most perfect preparation for this future, 
whatever it may be, is to die to all our own 
wills, to give ourselves wholly to the will of 
God. 

As the manna had all tastes, this general dis- 
position contains all the graces, and all the sen- 
timents suitable to all the conditions in which 
God can place us in time to come. 

3. When we are thus ready for all, it is 
in this depth of the abyss that we begin to 
gain foothold. We are also as tranquil about the 
past as the future. 

We suppose the worst of ourselves possible, 
but we cast ourselves blindly into the arms of 
God. We forget, we lose ourselves ; this for- 
getfulness of self is the most perfect penitence, 
for all conversion consists only in renouncing 
self to occupy ourselves with God. This for- 
getfulness of self is the matyrdom of self-love. 
We would like a hundred times better to con- 



58 DISTRACTION OF MI 1MB AND SADNESS. 

tradict, to condemn ourselves, to torture body 
and mind, than to forget ourselves. 

This forget fulness is an annihilation of self- 
love, in which it finds no resource. Then the 
heart is enlarged. We are relieved by being dis- 
burdened of the whole weight of self, with which 
we were overwhelmed. We are astonished to 
see how strait and simple the way is. We thought 
that there was need of a perpetual strife, and 
ever some new action. 

We perceive on the contrary that there is little 
to do ; that it is sufficient without reasoning about 
the future or the past to look upon God with 
confidence as a good father, who leads us in the 
present moment as by the hand. 

If any distraction makes us lose sight of him, 
without dwelling upon the distraction, we turn 
back to him from whom we had turned away. 
If we commit faults our penitence lor them is 
all from love ; we return to God, and he pro- 
duces in us the feelings he would have. 

The sin appears hideous, but the humiliation 
which arises from it, and for which God has 
permitted it, appears good. As the reflections 
of pride upon our own faults are bitter, uneasy, 
and peevish, so the return of the soul to God 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 59 



after its faults, is collected, peaceable, and sus- 
tained by confidence. 

You will feel by experience bow much this 
simple and peaceable return will facilitate your 
correction, more than all your vexation about 
the faults that have dominion over you. Only 
be faithful to turn simply toward God alone, 
as soon as you perceive your fault. It will be 
vain for you to wrangle with yourself; it is not 
with yourself that you ought to take measures. 
When you rail at yourself about your miseries, 
I only see in your counsel you alone with 
yourself. Poor counsel, where God is not ! 

Who shall stretch out a hand to help you out 
of the mire? Yourself? Alas ! it is yourself 
who are sunk in it, and cannot get out ! And 
besides this slough is yourself. The whole essence 
of your misery is the not being able to get away 
from self, and do you hope for the deliverance 
by being occupied always with yourself, and 
nourishing your sensibility by the sight of your 
weakness ? By these reflections you are only 
moved to a sort of pity for yourself. But the 
slightest look toward God would calm your heart, 
troubled by this attention to self. His presence 
always effects the deliverance from self, and this 



60 DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



is what we need. Escape then from yourself, 
and you will be at peace. But how escape 
thus? We have only to turn gently towards 
God, and form by degrees the habit of this by 
fidelity, in returning to it whenever we perceive 
any distraction. 

As for the natural sadness that arises from me- 
lancholy, it proceeds only from the body, and so 
diet and medicines will diminish that. 

It is true it continually returns, but it is 
not voluntary. When God gives it we endure 
it in peace, like a fever and other bodily suffer- 
ings. The imagination is wrapt in a profound 
blackness ; it is all hung with mourning ; but 
the will which is nourished only on pure faith is 
very ready to experience all these impressions. 
Thus we are at peace, because we are at the 
same time at peace with ourselves and submissive 
to God. 

The matter is not what we feel but what 
we will. We wish all that we have, and wish 
nothing that we have not. We would not 
choose to deliver ourselves from what we suffer, 
because it belongs to God alone to distribute 
crosses or consolations. We are in joy in the 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 61 



midst of tribulations, as the Apostle says ; it is 
not a joy of the senses ; it is a joy of pure will. 

The ungodly, in the midst of their pleasures 
have their will constrained, because they are 
never satisfied with their condition. They would 
like to drive away certain disgusts, and also 
enjoy certain delights that they lack. On the 
contrary the faithful soul has a will constrained 
in nothing, it accepts freely whatever God allots 
that is painful. It w r ishes it, it loves it, it em- 
braces it, it would not choose to quit it, even 
should it cost only a single desire which should 
be its own, and contrary to its surrender to Pro- 
vidence, whose purposes it would in nothing an- 
ticipate. If any thing is capable of giving to the 
heart ease and freedom, it is this entire surrender. 
It sheds abroad in the heart " a peace more abun- 
dant than the rivers, and a righteousness like 
the depths of the sea." If any thing can ren- 
der a mind serene, dissipate its scruples and its 
dark fears, soften its pains by the anointing of 
love, give to it a certain vigor in all its actions, 
and shed the joy of the Holy Spirit even on the 
countenance, and the words, it is this simple, 
free and childlike conduct in the arms of God. 

But we reason too much, and hurt ourselves 
6 



62 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



by our reasonings. There is a temptation of 
reasoning that is to be feared like all other 
temptations. There is an attention to our- 
selves, sensitive, anxious, and distrustful, that 
is a temptation the more subtle, as we do not 
regard it as a temptation ; but on the contrary 
give ourselves to it more and more, because 
we take it for the vigilance commanded in the 
Gospel. 

The watchfulness that Jesus Christ commands 
is a faithful attention to loving always, and doing 
the will of God in the present moment according 
to the intimations we have of it ; but it does not 
consist in distressing ourselves, putting ourselves 
always to the torture, and being constantly occu- 
pied with ourselves, rather than raising our eyes 
to God from whom comes our only help against 
ourselves. Why, under pretext of watchfulness, 
persist in discovering in ourselves what God 
does not will that we should see during this 
life ? Why lose thereby the fruit of pure faith 
and interior peace ? Why turn away from the 
presence of God, which he would render un- 
ceasing to us ? He has not said, be always 
yourselves the object before which you walk ; 
but " Walk before me and you shall be perfect " 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 63 



David full of his spirit says, " I saw the Lord 
always before me," and again " mine eyes are 
ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet 
out of the net." The danger is at his feet ; yet 
his eyes are on high. It is less useful to consider 
our danger, than the help of God. Moreover, 
we see all brought together in God. We there 
see human misery and the divine goodness ; a 
single glance of an upright and pure soul, how- 
ever simple it may be, perceives all in this infi- 
nite light. 

But, on the contrary, what can we see in 
our own darkness except only our darkness 
itself? Oh, my God, provided I do not cease to 
see thee, I shall not cease to see myself in all 
my miseries ; and I shall see myself better in 
thee than in myself. The true watchfulness is 
to see in thee thv will so as to fulfil it, and not 
to reason, without end, on the state of my own. 

When exterior occupations shall prevent my 
seeing nought but thee by closing in prayer the 
avenues of the senses, at least at such times, 
Oh, Lord, I will see thee doing all in all. 

I will everywhere behold, with joy, thy will 
fulfilled within me and without; like the saints 
in bliss, I will continually say amen. I will 



64 DISTRACTION OF MIND AND SADNESS. 



always sing in ray heart the song of the heaven- 
ly Zion. I will bless thee even in the wicked 
who by their evil will fail not to accomplish, in 
spite of themselves, thy all holy, just and omnip- 
otent will. In the chaste liberty of spirit which 
thou givest thy children, I will act and speak 
simply, cheerfully, and with conOdence. Even 
if I shall pass through the valley of the shadow 
of death I will fear no evil, because thou art 
always with me. I will never seek any danger. 
I will never enter into any engagement, but 
with the indications of thy Providence to be my 
strength and my solace. Even in those occupa- 
tions in which I shall be sustained by thy calling, 
I will give to recollection, to prayer, and to re- 
tirement, every day, every hour, every moment, 
thou shall leave me free ; and I will quit this 
blessed state, only as far as thou shalt thyself 
call me to some exterior duty. Then I shall 
in appearance go forth from thee, but thou wilt 
go forth with me, and while I thus seem to leave 
thee thou wilt carry me in thy bosom. I will 
not seek myself in my intercourse with the crea- 
tures. I will not fear that the state of devo- 
tion may lessen my agreeableness with them, 
or render my conversation insipid — for 1 wish 



DISTRACTION OF MIND AND- SADNESS. 65 

to please men only so far as that is necessary 
in order to please thee. 

If thou wishest to make use of me to accom- 
plish thy purposes with regard to them, I yield 
myself to thee ; without reflection upon my- 
self, I will simply impart to them all those gifts 
thou hast showered upon me. I will not go 
groping along, always falling back upon myself. 
However perilous or distracting the duty may 
be, I will conduct myself before thee with an 
upright intention, knowing that it is the good- 
ness of a Father in whose presence 1 walk, and 
that he does not desire subtlety in his children. 

If, on the contrary, thou dost not wish to make 
use of me for others, I will not offer myself, I will 
perform in peace the other things to which thou 
shalt limit me. For according to that disposition 
of self-surrender which thou dost grant me, 1 
neither desire nor refuse any thing. 1 am ready 
for any service and consent to be useless to all. 
Courted or despised, known or unknown, ap* 
plauded or opposed, what is it tome? It is 
thee and not myself, thee, and not thy gifts 
distinct from thyself and thy love, that I seek. 
All conditions are indifferent to me, provided 1 be 
in that which thou wiliest for me. 
6* 



66 



ON CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



ON CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 

To receive equally, and with the same sub- 
mission, all the different things that God gives 
us during the day, both without and within, is 
what is best for us to do. 

Without, there are disagreeable things, that 
we must bear courageously, and agreeable things 
on which we must not allow our hearts to rest. 
We resist the temptation of what is disagreeable 
by accepting it, and of what is flattering by refus- 
ing to open our hearts to it. For those things 
that are internal we have only to do the same. 
Those which are bitter, serve to crucify and 
produce their full effect in the soul, if we receive 
them simply with an unlimited acceptance, and 
without seeking to soften them. Those which 
are pleasant, and which are given us to sustain 
our weakness by a sensible solace in exterior 
exercises, should also be accepted, but in another 
way. We must receive them, since it is God 
who gives them to us for our need, but we must 
receive them not from love of them, but through 
conformity to the will of God. We should use 



ON CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



67 



them at the moment as we make use of a 
remedy, without complacency, without attach- 
ment, without appropriating them. These gifts 
should be received in us, but they should not 
gain a hold upon us, so that when God shall 
withdraw them, the loss may never trouble or 
discourage us. The source of presumption is 
in attachment to these transient and sensible 
gifts. We imagining that we count only upon 
the gift of God, but we count also upon ourselves 
because we appropriate to ourselves the gift of 
God, and confound it with ourselves. The evil 
of this conduct is, that, whenever we find we 
have miscalculated upon ourselves, we fall into 
discouragement. But a soul that leans only on 
God is not surprised at its own misery. It 
takes pleasure in seeing that itself can do noth- 
ing, and that God alone can do all. I care 
little that I see myself poor, knowing that my 
father possesses infinite riches that he wishes to 
give me. It is only by nourishing our heart or 
pure confidence in God, that we become accus- 
tomed to dispense with confidence in ourselves. 

It is for this reason that we should count less 
upon a sensible fervor, and upon certain mea- 
sures of wisdom, that we take with ourselves 



68 



IN WHAT MANNER WE SHOULD 



from our own perfection, than upon a simplicity, 
a littleness, a renunciation of all movements of 
our own, and a perfect pliancy in giving our- 
selves up to all the impressions of grace. All 
the rest, by establishing shining virtues, would 
only inspire us secretly with more confidence 
in our own efforts. Let us pray God,* that he 
will tear froin our heart all that we should choose 
to plant there ourselves, and that he will plant 
there with his own hands the tree of life laden 
with fruits. 



IN WHAT MANNER WE SHOULD WATCH OVER 
OURSELVES. 

The following appears to me the method we 
should practice in watching over ourselves with- 
out being too much occupied with it. 

The wise and vigilant traveller watches over 
all his steps, and has always his eyes open on 
the part of the road immediately before him ; 
but he is not constantly turning back to count his 
steps, and examine all his tracks ; he would thus 



WATCH OVER OURSELVES. 



69 



lose time in which he should be going forward. 
A soul that God truly leads by the hand, (for 
I speak not of those who are still learning to 
walk, and who are still seeking the way,) should 
watch over his path, but with a vigilance single, 
tranquil, limited to the present, and without 
anxiety from the love of self. It is a continual 
attention to the will of God, to accomplish it at 
each moment, and not a reflection upon our- 
selves to be assured of our condition, while God 
wishes us to be uncertain of it. For this reason 
the Psalmist says, " my eyes are raised toward 
the Lord, and he will deliver my feet from the 
snares." 

Observe, that in order to guide his feet with 
safety among ways beset with snares, instead 
of casting down his eyes to examine all his steps, 
he, on the contrary, raises them toward the 
Lord. For we never watch over ourselves so 
well, as when we walk with God present to our 
eyes, as God ordered Abraham ; and indeed 
what should be the end of all our vigilance ? 
to follow step by step the will of God. Who 
conforms to that in every thing, watches over 
himself, and sanctifies himself in every thing. 

If then we never lost the presence of God, 
we should never cease to watch over ourselves, 



70 



WATCHING OVER OURSELVES. 



out with a vigilance simple, loving, tranquil, and 
disinterested ; whereas that other vigilance, that 
some desire for the sake of security, is harsh, 
anxious, and full of self-interest. It is not by 
our own light, but by that of God that we 
should walk. We cannot see the holiness of 
God, without abhorrence of our slightest un- 
faithfulness. We do not fail indeed to add to 
the presence of God and meditation, the ex- 
aminations of conscience, according to our need 
of them, and in order to facilitate the confessions 
we have to make. These examinations are made 
more and more, in a manner simple, easy, and 
removed from all anxious reference to self. We 
examine ourselves not for our own interest, but 
to conform to the advice given us, and accom- 
plish the will of God. 

As for the rest, we give ourselves up into his 
hands, and we are as glad in knowing that we 
are in the hands of God, as we should be sorry 
to be in our own. We desire to see nothing 
that he is pleased to hide. As we love him 
infinitely more than we love ourselves, we 
sacrifice ourselves unconditionally to his good 
pleasure, we think only of loving him, and 
forgetting ourselves. He who thus generously 
loses his soul, will find it again for life eternal. 



ON CROSSES. 



71 



ON CROSSES. 

The painful things that come between God 
and us, are crosses which we should endure pa- 
tiently, and which will be the means of uniting 
us to him, if we bear them with humility. The 
things which confound and overwhelm our 
pride, are still better for us than those which 
animate us to virtue. We need to be cast 
down, as St. Paul was at the gates of Damascus, 
and 6nd no resource in ourselves, but in God. 

Nature inspires only a proud and disdainful 
courage, and is irritated against the persons 
whom God makes use of to humble us. 

We should bear our crosses in silence with an 
humble, and peaceful courage. We should be 
great in God and not in ourselves ; great by 
gentleness and patience, and little by humility. 

If God, in the humiliations he brings upon us, 
wounds to the quick, so much the better ; it is 
the charitable physician applying the remedy to 
our diseases which he would cure. Let us be 
silent, let us adore him who strikes us, let us 
open our mouths only to say, " I have deserved 



72 



ON CROSSES- 



it." However bitter the cup. we should swallow 
it to the' dregs like Jesus Christ. He died for 
those who killed him, and he has taught us to 
love, to bless, and to pray for those who make 
us suffer. 

We should redouble our prayers in the time of 
trouble and temptations. We shall find in the 
heart of Jesus, dying on the cross, all that our 
own hearts need in order to love those that our 
pride would choose to hate. 

The cross when loved is but half a cross, 
because love softens all ; and we suffer much 
only because our love is small. Oh, how happy 
are we in suffering much, and how unhappy in 
not suffering with Jesus ; since we are in this 
world only to be purified by suffering. 

# # • # 

Crosses are the daily bread. Our soul has 
every day need of a certain measure of sufferings 
in order to become detached, as the body has 
need of a certain quantity of food. We need 
crosses. We should make no progress if God 
did not take care to turn the world and life into 
bitterness to us, in order to detach us from them. 

The cross is never without fruit, when we 
receive it in the spirit of sacrifice. We should 



ON CROSSES. 



73 



accept it, adoring the hand of God which lays 
it upon us to sanctify us. Happy he who is 
ready for all ; who never says it is too much ; 
who counts not upon himself, but on the all- 
powerful ; who wishes no consolation, except so 
far as God himself wishes to grant it. and who 
nourishes himself on his pure will. 

There are in crosses so many tokens of mercy 
and so great a harvest of graces for faithful 
souls, that if nature is afflicted by them, faith 
should rejoice in them. We find in them peace 
by submission, and by the unreserved sacrifice 
of the purest pleasures. For to this point God 
ur^es the soul to detach it from all that is not 
himself. What remains to be done, but to 
embrace the cross that he presents and suffer 
ourselves to be crucified ? When he has thor- 
oughly crucified, he consoles ; but not like 
the creatures who give poisoned consolations, 
to nourish the venom of self-love ; he consoles 
only in a solid and true way. 

The peace that is found in submission without 
any exterior alleviation is a great gift. Thereby 
God accustoms us to be tried without being 
cast down. Although weak and sensitive na- 
ture sinks, in the depth of our souls we are 
7 



74 



ON CROSSES. 



supported. It is a peace the purer in proportion 
to its calmness. 

* * # # 

The crosses that are chosen by ourselves are 
almost nothing ; God alone knows how to crucify. 

The crosses that God gives us, and under 
which he would bow us down, will not repress 
our haughtiness ; it will be only by renouncing 
our own spirit in silence before God, that we 
can be humbled and softened by his grace. 

The crosses which we anticipate by an 
anxious foresight, are seen beyond the order of 
God. We see them without unction to support 
them ; we see them even by an unfaithfulness 
which drives the influences of grace away from 
us. Thus all is bitter and insupportable in them, 
all dark and without resource. And the soul 
which has wished to taste, through curiosity, the 
forbidden fruit, finds only death and revolt with- 
out consolation within itself. 

Behold thus, what it is not to trust in God, 
and to dare to violate his secrets of which he 
is jealous ! Let us shut our eyes then to all 
that God hides from us, and holds in reserve in 
the treasures of his deep counsels. Let us adore 
without seeing ; let us be silent ; let us remain 
in peace. The crosses of the present moment 



ON CROSSES. 75 

always bring their grace, and consequently their 
mitigation with them. It is the hand of God 
which makes itself felt in them. 

Let us go out of ourselves ; let us no longer 
love ourselves with an inordinate love ; and the 
love of God which will at every moment unfold 
itself in every thing, will console us also each 
moment for all that God shall do around or 
within us. The contradictions of men, their 
inconstancy, even their injustice, will appear to 
us the effects of the unchangeable wisdom, justice 
and goodness of God. We shall see only God, 
the infinitely good, hiding himself under the 
weaknesses of blind and corrupt men. Thus this 
deceitful fashion of the world, passing like the 
pageant of a theatre, will become to us a spec- 
tacle very - real, and worthy of eternal praises, 
when seen in its relation to God. 

What do we expect of men ? They are 
weak, inconstant, blind ; some do not will what 
they have the power to do, others have not 
the power to perform what they will. Nature 
is a broken reed ; if we wish to lean upon it, 
the reed bends, cannot support us, and pierces 
our hand. However great men may appear, 
they are nothing in themselves ; but when God 



76 



ON CROSSES. 



is great in them, it is he who makes capricious 
humor, peevish pride, dissimulation, vanity and 
all foolish passions serve his eternal counsels with 
regard to the chosen. He employs inward and 
outward means, the corruption of men, our own 
imperfections, and our own sensibility. In a 
word, he moves heaven and earth to save what 
is dear to him ; nothing is done but to purify us, 
and make us worthy of himself. Let us rejoice 
then, when our heavenly Father tries us here 
below by divers interior and exterior temptations, 
when he renders all without us contrary, and all 
within painful. Let us rejoice, for it is thus 
that our faith, more precious than gold, is purified. 
Let us rejoice to experience thus the nothing- 
ness and falsehood of all that is not God ; for 
it is by this crucifying experience that we are 
torn from ourselves and the desires of this world. 
Let us rejoice, for it is by these throes that the 
new man is born in us. What ! let us not 
be discouraged, it is the hand of God who 
hastens to accomplish his work. It is what we 
every day wish him to do ; and as soon as he 
begins to do it we are troubled. Our cow- 
ardice and impatience arrest the hand of God. 



ON CROSSES. 



77 



A piety without crosses is but an imaginary piety. 
While we remain shut up within ourselves, 
we are exposed to the contradiction of men, 
their malignity, their injustice ; our own ill hu- 
mor exposes us to that of others ; our passions 
clash with those of our neighbors ; our desires 
are so many places by which we lay ourselves 
open to all other men ; our pride, which is in- 
compatible with that of our neighbor, swells 
like the waves of the agitated sea ; every thing 
opposes, repulses, attacks us ; we are laid open 
on all sides by the sensitiveness of our passions, 
and the jealousy of our pride. There is no 
peace to be hoped in ourselves, where we live 
at the mercy of a crowd of eager and insa- 
tiable desires, and where we can never satisfy 
that self of the old man so jealous, so delicate, 
so sensitive about all that touches it. 

# * * # 

The only remedy by which we may find 
peace is to go out of ourselves. We must 
renounce self, and lose all our self-love, that 
we may have nothing more either to lose, to 
fear, or to spare. Then we taste the true peace 
reserved for the men of good will, that is to say 
those who have no other will than that of God, 



78 



ON CROSSES. 



which becomes theirs. Then men have no 
more power over us, for we are no longer acces- 
sible through our desires or our fears ; then we 
wish for all that God wills, and wish for nothing 
that he does not will. This is being inaccessible 
to the enemy ; it is being invulnerable. Man 
can do only what God gives him power to do 
against us. All that God permits him to do 
against us being the will of God is also ours. In 
this state we have placed our treasure so high 
that no hand can reach it, to snatch it from us. 
Our reputation may be assailed, but we consent 
to it, for we know how good humiliation is 
when it comes from God. We are disappointed 
in friendships ; so much the better ; it is the only 
true friend who is jealous of all others ; and 
who detaches us from them, in order to purify 
our attachments. We are subjected to vexa- 
tions, servitude, constraint, but God knows it, 
and it is enough. We love the hand that crushes 
us. Peace is found in the midst of all these 
troubles. Blessed peace ! which follows us even 
to the cross ! We wish what we have, and 
wish for nothing that we have not. The more 
perfect this self-surrender, the deeper the peace. 
If any bonds or any desires remain, the peace 



ON CROSSES. 



79 



is imperfect. If all the bonds were broken, the 
liberty would be unbounded. Let disgrace, 
grief and death fall upon me ; I listen to Jesus 
Christ who says to me ; :i fear not those who 
kill the body and after that have no more that they 
can do." Oh, how weak are they even when they 
take away life ! How short is their power ! 
they can only break an earthen vessel, only 
kill that which of itself is dying every day, only 
hasten a little that death which is a deliverance ; 
after which we escape from their hands to the 
bosom of God, where all is tranquil and un- 
changeable. 

Of the persons who cause us suffering, we 
should think only to pardon them. We should 
see in them God who makes use of them to 
exercise our humility, our patience, our love 
for the cross. We shall one day see before 
God, how useful the persons who crucify us 
have been to us, by fastening us to the cross 
with Jesus Christ. The suffering they cause 
will soon pass, and the fruit that will result 
will be eternal. 



80 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



NECESSITY OF THE PURIFICATION OF THE 
SOUL, IN RESPECT TO THE GIFTS OF GOD, 
AND ESPECIALLY FRIENDSHIPS. 

God who appears so rigorous to the soul never 
brings any suffering upon us for the pleasure 
of making us suffer. The rigor of the operation 
arises from the evil that it is necessary to remove. 
He would make no incision if all was sound. 
He cuts off only what is dead and ulcerated. 
It is then our corrupt self-love that causes our 
pains ; the hand of God causes the least that 
is possible. Judge then how deep and en- 
venomed are the wounds, since God spares us 
so much, and yet makes us suffer so violently. 

In like manner, too, as he never makes us 
suffer but for our healing, so he never takes from 
us any of his gifts, but to restore them to us a 
hundred fold. From love he deprives us of all 
the purest gifts that we possess impurely. The 
purer the gifts, the more jealous is he, that we 
may keep them without appropriating them, 
or ever referring them to ourselves. The most 
eminent graces are the most dangerous poisons, 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 81 



if we find in them any support and any com- 
placency of self-love. 

* # # * 

Hence it is that all perceived virtues need to 
be purified, because they nourish the natural life 
in us. Corrupt nature makes a very subtile 
nourishment for itself of the gifts of grace mos t 
contrary to nature. Self-love nourishes itself 
not only on fervent prayer and self-renuncia- 
tion, but also on the purest devotion and the most 
extreme sacrifices. It is an infinite support to 
think that we are no longer supported by any- 
thing, and that we do not cease in this horrible 
trial, to give ourselves up faithfully and with- 
out reserve. To consummate within us the 
purifying sacrifice of the gifts of God, it is 
necessary completely to destroy the holocaust ; 
it is necessary to lose sight of every thing, even 
the perceived surrender to the will of God, 
without however losing it in reality. 

It is only in this apparent loss of all his 
gifts, and the real sacrifice of the whole self, 
after having lost the feeling of all interior re- 
source, that God alone is found purely. The 
infinite jealousy of God exacts so much of us, 
and our self-love compels him (if we may so 
speak) to this, because we never wholly lose 



82 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOCL. 



ourselves in God, until all other supports fail 
us. It is like a man falling into an abyss ; 
he does not completely give himself up, until 
after all supports of the bank escape from his 
hands. The self-love that God casts down, 
seizes in its despair at every shadow of grace, as 
a drowning man catches at all the twigs he 
finds as he falls. 

We should, therefore, understand the neces- 
sity of that withdrawing of the feeling or con- 
sciousness of all the divine gifts, which is grad- 
ually effected in us. There is not a single gift, 
however eminent it may be, which, after having 
been a means of advancement, may not sometimes 
become subsequently a snare, or an obstacle, 
through reflections by which the gift is appro- 
priated to self, and which soil the purity of the 
soul. Hence it is that God takes away what 
he had given. 

But he does not take it away to deprive the 
soul of it forever. He takes it away to make it 
a better gift to us, and to restore it without the 
impurity of that evil appropriation of it, that we 
make without perceiving it. The loss of the gift 
serves to take away the feeling of ownership \ 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



83 



and this feeling taken away, the gift is restored 
a hundred fold. 

Then the gift is no longer, if I may venture 
so to speak, a gift of God to the soul, but God 
himself. It is no longer a gift of God ; for it 
is no longer regarded as something distinguished 
from him, and which the soul can possess ; it 
is God himself alone and immediately that we 
regard, and who, without being possessed by the 
soul, possesses it according to his good pleasure. 

The method then that God usually takes 
with the soul is to draw it first to himself, in 
order to detach it from the world and gross pas- 
sions, by making it taste all the most fervent 
virtues, and the sweetness of devotion. In this 
first sensible attraction, the whole soul is turned 
to mortification and prayer. It denies itself 
without ceasing in everything ; it disengages it- 
self constantly from all exterior consolations ; 
those of friendship even are retrenched, because 
it feels in them that impurity of self-love which 
refers friends to self. There remain only the 
friends to whom we are bound by conformity of 
sentiments, or those cultivated from charitv or 
duty ; all the rest become burdensome ; and if 
we have not lost the natural relish for them, 



84 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



we distrust still more their friendship when they 
are not in the same state of devotion with our- 
selves. 

There are many souls that never pass beyond 
this state of fervor and spiritual abundance. 
But there are others whom God leads farther, 
and whom he strips through jealousy, after 
having clothed and adorned them. These fall 
into a state of disgust, spiritual coldness, and lan- 
guor, in which every thing is burdensome to them. 
Far from being alive to the enjoyments of friend- 
ship, the friendship of persons in whom they for- 
merly delighted the most, becomes irksome to 
them. A soul in this state feels that God and 
all his gifts are withdrawn from it. This is for 
it a state of agony, and a kind of despair; the 
person can no longer endure himself ; all is 
turned to disgust. God takes away every thing, 
and the delight in friendship with all the rest. 
Can we wonder at this ? He almost takes away 
all relish for his love and bis law. The 
person knows not where he is; the heart is 
withered ; its life is almost gone ; he can love 
nothing. The bitterness of having lost God, of 
whom in his fervor he had had so sweet a per- 
ception, is like wormwood poured over all that 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 85 



he had loved among the creatures. He is like 
a sick man who feels himself sinking, for want 
of nourishment, and who at the same time has 
an abhorrence of the most exquisite food. 

Then speak not of friendship ; the very name is 
distressing, and would bring tears to the eyes ; 
everything overmasters you ; you know not what 
you wish. You have likings and pains like a child, 
of which you cannot give account, and which van- 
ish like a dream the moment you speak of them. 
What you say of your disposition appears to 
you always a falsehood, because it ceases to be 
true as soon as you begin to speak of it. Nothing 
is permanent in you ; you can give no assurance of 
any thing — you can promise yourself nothing — 
cannot even describe yourself. You are, with 
regard to your interior sentiments, like the 
daughters of the Visitation with regard to their 
cells, and their furniture ; every thing changes — 
nothing is your own — your heart less than all the 
rest. It is incredible how much this puerile in- 
constancy humbles and breaks down a wise soul, 
firm and haughty in its virtue. To speak then 
of a good disposition, of tenderness, generosity, 
constancy, gratitude for one's friends to a soul 
8 



86 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL, 



sick, and in the agonies of death, is like speaking 
of dancing and music to a dying man. The 
heart is a tree withered to its very roots. 

But wait till the winter is past, and God has 
brought death upon all that should die ; then the 
spring reanimates all, and God restores friendship 
with all other gifts a hundred fold. We feel our 
own inclinations for our true friends revive within 
us ; we no longer love them in ourselves and for 
self; we love them in God and for God, but 
with a love lively, tender, accompanied with 
delight and sensibility ; for God can render 
sensibility pure. It is not sensibility, but self- 
love that corrupts our friendships. Then we 
give ourselves up without scruple to this chaste 
friendship, for it is God who inspires it. We love 
through him. without being turned away from 
him ; it is him that we love in what we should 
love. 

In that order of providence that connects 
us with certain persons. God gives us delight 
in them ; and we do not fear to wish to be loved 
by these persons, because he who inspires the 
desire, inspires it very purely, and without any 
selfish feeling of ownership. We wish to be 
loved, as we should like that another should be, 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



87 



if it were according to the purpose of God. We 
seek ourselves in them for the sake of God, with- 
out self-complacency, and without any interest 
of our own. In this resurrection of friendship, 
as all is without interest, and without selfish re- 
flections, we see all the defects of our friend and 
our friendship without being offended. 

Before God has thus purified friendship, the 
most pious persons are sensitive, jealous, irritable 
toward their best friends, because self-love al- 
ways fears to lose, and always wishes to gain 
even in the intercourse that appears the most 
generous and disinterested. If it seek neither 
profit nor honor in the friend, at least it seeks in 
him theagreeableness of the intercourse, the solace 
of confidence, the repose of heart which is the 
greatest charm of life ; finally, the exquisite plea- 
sure of loving generously and disinterestedly. 
Take away this consolation, trouble this friend- 
ship which seems so pure, and self-love is discon- 
solate, it complains, it wishes to be compassion- 
ated ; it is vexed ; it is transported with grief; it 
is for ourselves that we are grieved, which shows 
that it was self that was loved in the friend. 
But when it is God whom we love in our 
friend, we are bound to him by a close and 



ss 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



unreserved union ; and yet if the friendship is 
broken by the order of God, all is peaceable 
id the depths of the soul ; it has lost nothing : 
for it has nothing to lose since it has lost itself. 
If it feels grief it is for the person that it loved, 
in case this rupture is hurtful to him. The grief 
may be deep and bitter, since the friendship 
was deeply felt ; but it is a peaceful grief, anc 
exempt from the cutting pangs of an interestec 
love. 

There is yet a second difference to be ob- 
served in this change of friendships by grace, 
While we yet belong to self, we love nothing 
except for ourselves ; and the man shut up ir. 
himself can have only a limited friendship accord- 
ing to his measure. It is always a heart strait- 
ened in all its affections ; and the greatest worldly 
generosity has always somewhere narrow limits, 
If the glory of loving nobly leads far, we shall 
stop short as soon as we arrive where we car. 
imagine that this glory will be injured. But for 
the souls which go out of themselves, and truly 
lose themselves in God, friendship is as bound- 
less as he in whom they love. It is only the re- 
ference to self that narrows the heart ; fo: 
God has given to it something infinite which 



PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 



89 



has affinity to him. For this reason the soul 
that is not occupied with itself, which in every 
thing counts itself as nothing, finds in this nothing 
the immensity of God himself. It loves without 
measure, without end, without human motives ; 
it loves because God, boundless love, loves as 
God. 

This is the state of the apostle, which is so 
well expressed by St. Paul. He feels every 
thing with an infinite purity and quickness ; he 
bears in his heart all the churches ; the whole 
universe is too narrow for this heart ; he rejoices ; 
he is afflicted ; he is angry ; he is moved with 
tenderness ; his heart is as if the seat of all the 
strongest passions. He humbles himself ; he 
magnifies himself; he has the authority of a 
father, and the tenderness of a mother ; he loves 
with a jealous love ; he wishes to be anathema 
for his children. All these sentiments, although 
free and voluntary, are inspired in him ; and it 
is thus that God makes his children love when 
they love only in him. 



8* 



90 



OPERATIONS OF GOD 



ON THE OPERATIONS OF GOD WITHIN THE 
SOUL, TO LEAD MAN TO THE TRUE END " 
FOR WHICH HE WAS CREATED. 

At first God attacked us outwardly ; he tore 
from us by degrees all the creatures that we 
loved too much, and contrary to his law. But 
this outward process, although essential in order 
to lay the foundation of the whole edifice, forms 
but a small part of it. Oh, how incomparably 
greater, more difficult, and more wonderful is the 
work within, although invisible ! 

There comes a time when God, after having 
thoroughly stripped and mortified us outwardly 
with respect to the creatures to which we were 
attached, attacks us within to tear us from our- 
selves. It is then no longer foreign objects that 
he takes from us ; he tears from us that self, that 
was the centre of our self-love. We loved all 
the rest only for this self, and it is this self that 
God pursues unrelentingly and unsparingly. To 
take from a man his clothes is to treat him ill ; 
but it is nothing in comparison with the rigor 
that would tear off his skin, and leave no flesh 



WITHIN THE SOUL. 



91 



on his bones. — Cut off the branches of a tree, 
and, far from killing it, you give strength to the 
sap, it puts forth anew on all sides ; but attack 
the trunk, dry up the root, it loses its leaves, it 
languishes, it dies. It is thus that God takes 
pleasure in making us die to ourselves. 

As for the exterior mortification of the senses, 
he enables us to effect this by certain efforts of 
courage against ourselves. The more the senses 
are deadened by this courage of the soul, the 
more the soul sees its virtue, and sustains itself 
by its exertion. But subsequently God reserves 
to himself to attack the depths of this soul, and 
deprive it of the very last breath of all its own 
life ! Then it is no longer by the strength of 
the soul that he combats exterior objects ; it is 
by the weakness of the soul that he turns it 
against itself. It sees itself, and is filled with 
abhorrence at what it sees. It remains faithful, 
but it no longer sees its fidelity. All the faults 
that it has hitherto had, rise up against it, and 
often new ones appear which it has never 
suspected. It no longer finds that resource of 
fervor and courage that formerly sustained it. 
It faints, and is like Jesus Christ sorrowful even 
unto death, and all that remains to it is the will 



92 



OPERATIONS OF GOD 



to cling to nothing, and abandon itself without 
reserve to the operation of the divine will. 

Still more, it has not even the consolation of 
perceiving in itself this will. It is no longer a 
perceived and conscious will, but simple, without 
reference to self, and so much the more con- 
cealed, as it is more inward and deeper in the 
soul. In this state, God takes care of what 
is necessary in order to detach this person from 
self. He strips him by degrees by taking from 
him, one after another, all the garments with 
which he was clothed. 

The last sacrifices, though not always the 
greatest, are nevertheless the most severe. 
Though the robe is in itself more precious than 
the under garment, we feel the loss of the latter 
much more than the former. In the first 
sacrifices we are consoled for what is lost by 
what remains ; in the last there remains nothing 
but bitterness, nakedness, and confusion. 

You will ask, perhaps, in what these sacrifices 
consist ; but I cannot tell. They are as various 
as the characters of men. Each suffers his 
own, according to his need, and the designs of 
God. How can we see of what one shall be 
stripped, if we know not with what he is 



WITHIN THE SOUL. 



93 



clothed ? Every one clings to a multitude of 
things he would never imagine. He only feels 
his attachment to them when they are taken 
from him. 1 feel my hair only when it is torn 
from my head. God develops to us by degrees 
the depths of the heart that were unknown to us, 
and we are astonished to discover, even in our 
virtues, faults of which we had always thought 
ourselves incapable. It is like a grotto that 
appeared dry on all sides, and from which water 
suddenly trickles in places where we least ex- 
pected it. 

These sacrifices that God requires of us are 
not usually such as we might imagine. What 
is expected finds us prepared, and is little suited 
to effect within us the death to ourselves. God 
surprises us by things the most unexpected. 
They are nothings, but nothings that fill us 
with distress, and are the torture of self-love. 
Great and shining virtues are no longer in sea- 
son ; they would contain pride ; they would 
give a certain inward strength and confidence, 
contrary to the design of God, which is to 
deprive us of our foothold. Then the conduct 
is simple, and has nothing out of the usual 
course. Every thing is common. Others see 



94 



OPERATIONS OF GOD 



nothing great, and the person himself finds 
nothing in himself but what is natural, feeble, 
spiritless ; but one would like a hundred times 
better to fast on bread and water, and practise 
the greatest austerities, than suffer all that goes 
on within. Not that the person relishes auster- 
ities with fervor ; no ; this fervor has gone ; but 
there is found in the pliancy that God demands 
for an endless number of little things, more of 
renunciation and death to self than there would 
be in the greatest sacrifices. In the mean time, 
God gives no rest to the soul until he has ren- 
dered it pliant and yielding, by bending it in 
every direction. Now we are required to speak 
too ingenuously ; then again to be silent. We 
are obliged to be praised, then blamed, then for- 
gotten, then examined anew. We must be low, 
— be exalted, suffer ourselves to be condemned 
without saying a word when that might justify 
us at once ; at another time we are required to 
speak well of ourselves. We must consent to 
find ourselves weak, disquieted, irresolute about a 
trifle ; to show the pettishness of a little child ; 
to offend our friends by our coldness ; to become 
jealous and suspicious without any reason ; to 
utter the most foolish jealousies to those against 



WITHIN THE SOUL, 



95 



whom they are felt ; to speak with patience and 
ingenuousness to some persons, in opposition to 
their taste and our own, and to no purpose ; to 
appear artful and insincere ; finally to find our- 
selves cold, languid, without relish for God, dis- 
tracted in mind, so far removed from every sen- 
timent of grace, that we are tempted to fail into 
despair. These are some examples of these 
sacrifices that now occur to me, but there are 
others without number that God tempers for 
each one according to his designs. 

Let me not be told that these are vain and 
extravagant fancies. Can we doubt that God 
acts immediately in the soul ? Can we doubt 
that he acts there to make us die to self? Can 
we doubt that God, after having taken away the 
gross passions, attacks within all the subtile re- 
flections of self-love, especially in souls that have 
given themselves up generously, and without re- 
serve, to the spirit of grace ? The more he 
wishes to purify them, the more he proves them 
within. The world has no eyes to see these 
trials, nor ears to hear them : but the world is 
blind ; its wisdom is only death ; it cannot sym- 
pathise with the spirit of truth. It is only the 
Spirit of God as the apostle says, that can pene- 
trate the deep things of God. 



96 



OPERATIONS OF GOD. 



At first we are not yet used to this inward 
operation, which is going to strip us completely. 
We would be silent, collected, endure all, suffer 
ourselves to be led by the course of Providence, 
like a man who should allow himself to be car- 
ried along by the current of a river. But we 
dare not yet venture to listen to the interior 
voice, for the sacrifice that God prepares. We 
are like the child Samuel who was not yet ac- 
customed to the communications of the Lord. 
The Lord called him ; he thought it was Eli ; 
Eli said, " My child, you have dreamed; no- 
body speaks to you." Just so we know not 
whether it is not some imagination that would 
lead us too far. Often the high-priest Eii (that 
is to say, some guides) tells us that we have 
dreamed, and that we should remain at rest. 
But God doth not leave us thus, and awakens 
us till we lend an ear to what he would say. 
# # # § 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 



97 



OX CHRISTIAN" PERFECTION". 

Christian perfection has not the strictness, 
the irksomeness, the constraint, that some imag- 
ine. It requires that we should be devoted to 
God from the depths of the" heart ; and when we 
are thus his in the depths of the heart, all that is 
done for him becomes easy. Those who are 
God's without reserve are always contented ; 
for they wish only what God wills, and they 
wish to do for him all that he would have. 
They renounce all, and find a hundred fold in 
this renunciation. Peace of conscience, free- 
dom of the heart, the sweetness of abandoning 
themselves to the hands of God, the joy of see- 
ing the light always increasing in their hearts ; 
finally, deliverance from the tyrannical fears and 
desires of the world, form that hundred fold hap- 
piness that the true children of God possess in 
the midst of crosses, provided they are faithful. 

They sacrifice themselves ; but to what they 
love most. They suffer ; but they are willing 
to suffer, and they prefer suffering to all their 
false joys. Their bodies are afflicted with sharp 
9 



98 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 



pains. Their imaginations are troubled. Their 
minds fall into languor and fainting ; but the 
will is firm and tranquil in its inmost depths, 
and it says amen to all the blows with which 
God smites in order to sacrifice it. 

What God demands of us is, a will no longer 
divided between him and any creature. It is a 
will pliant in his hands, which desires what God 
desires, and rejects only what he rejects ; which 
wishes without reserve all that he wills, and 
never wishes, under any pretext, what he does 
not will. When one is in this state, every thing 
is salutary. Even amusements, taken in this 
spirit, are turned into good works. 

Happy he who gives himself to God. He is 
delivered from his passions ; from the judgments 
of men ; from their malignity ; from the tyranny 
of their maxims ; from their cold and miserable 
raillery ; from the unhappiness the world attri- 
butes to fortune ; from the unfaithfulness, the 
inconstancy of friends ; from the artifices and 
snares of enemies ; from his own weakness ; from 
the misery, the shortness of life ; from the hor- 
rors of a profane death ; from the cruel remorse 
attached to criminal pleasures ; and, finally, 
from the eternal condemnation of God. 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 



99 



The Christian is delivered from this innumer- 
able multitude of evils, since, putting his will 
into the hands of God, he wishes only what God 
wills, and. thus finds his consolation by faith, and 
consequently by hope in the midst of all his 
pains. 

What weakness would it be, then, to fear to 
give oneself to God, and advance too far in a 
state so desirable ! 

Happy those who throw themselves unre- 
servedly and blindly into the arms of the Father 
of mercies, and God of all consolation, as St. 
Paul speaks. Then we desire nothing but to 
know what we owe to God, and we fear nothing 
except that w 7 e may not see sufficiently what he 
requires. As soon as we discover a new light 
in his law, we are transported with joy, like a 
miser who has found a treasure. 

The true Christian, with whatever distress 
Providence overwhelms him, wishes all that 
happens to him, and wishes for nothing that he 
has not. The more he loves God, the more 
satisfied he is ; and the highest perfection, far 
from laying burdens on him, renders his yoke 
more light. 

What folly to fear being too much devoted to 



100 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 



God ! It is to fear being too happy. It is to 
fear loving the will of God in all things. It is 
to fear having too much courage in inevitable 
crosses, too much consolation in the love of God, 
and too much detachment from the passions that 
render us miserable. 

Let us despise, then, the things of earth, to 
be entirely God's. I do not say that we should 
quit them entirely ; for when we are already in 
a virtuous and regular life, only the depths of the 
heart are to be changed by loving, and we shall 
do nearly the same things we did before ; for 
God does not subvert the conditions of men, nor 
the duties that he has himself attached to them ; 
but we shall do, to serve God, what we did to 
serve and please the world, and satisfy our- 
selves. There will be only this difference, 
that, instead of being devoured by our pride, by 
our tyrannical passions, and the malignant cen- 
sure of the world, we shall act, on the contrary, 
with freedom, with courage, with hope in God. 
Confidence will animate us. The expectation 
of eternal possessions, which are approaching 
white those of this world are escaping from us, 
will sustain us in the midst of sufferings. The 
love of God, that will make us feel the love he 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 



101 



has for us ; will give us wings to fly in his way, 
and rise above all our miseries. 

# # * * # 

The Son of God says in general to all Chris- 
tians, without exception ; let him who will be 
my disciple, take up his cross and follow me. 
The broad way leads to destruction. We must 
follow the narrow way, in which few enter. 
Only those, who do violence to themselves, ob- 
tain the kingdom of heaven. It is necessary to 
be born again, to renounce self, to hate oneself 
to become a child, to be poor in spirit, to weep 
in order to be comforted, not to be of the world, 
which is cursed on account of its offences. 

These truths affright many ; and this because 
they simply know what religion requires, with- 
out knowing what it presents, and because they 
are ignorant of the spirit of love, which renders 
all light. They know not that this religion 
leads to the highest perfection, by giving peace 
through a principle of love that softens all suf- 
fering. 

Those who are devoted to God without re- 
serve, are always happy. They experience 
that the yoke of Jesus Christ is easy and light ; 
that in him is found the rest of the soul ; and 
9* 



102 FAITH AND CHARITY" BETTER 



that he gives relief to those who are weary and 
heavy-laden, as he has himself promised. 

# * # # * 

The time approaches. It comes. It is here. 
Let us hasten to anticipate it. Let us love the 
eternal beauty which never grows old, and ever 
prevents those from growing old who love nothing 
but itself. Let us despise this unhappy world, 
which is already falling in ruin on all sides. 

# # # # # 

This world, to which we are attached, we 
are about to leave. It is itself misery, vanity, 
and folly. It is but a phantom, and a fashion 
passing away, as St. Paul says. 



THAT THE WAY OF NAKED FAITH AND PURE 
CHARITY IS BETTER AND MORE SAFE THAN 
THAT OF KNOWLEDGE AND SENSIBLE 
ENJOYMENT. 

Those who are attached to God, only so far 
as they taste pleasure and solace, resemble the 
people who followed Jesus Christ, not for his 
teaching, but for the loaves he miraculously 



THAN KNOWLEDGE AND ENJOYMENT. 103 



multiplied. They say, like St. Peter, " Lord, 
it is good for us to be here ; let us make three 
tabernacles." But they know not what they 
say. After having been intoxicated with the 
delights of Tabor, they deny the Son of God, 
and refuse to follow him upon Calvary. They 
not only seek sensible enjoyment, but wish also 
for illumination ; that is to say, the mind is curi- 
ous to see. while the heart wishes to be moved 
by sweet and soothing feelings. Is this dying 
to self? Is this the righteous man of St. Paul, 
of whom faith is the living nourishment ? 
# # # # # 

This life of illumination and sensible fervor, 
when one is so much attached to it as to make 
ic his exclusive object, is a very dangerous snare. 

1. Whoever has no other support will quit 
prayer, and, with prayer, God himself, when 
this source of pleasure shall fail. You know 
that St. Therese said, that a great number of 
souls quitted prayer, when the prayer was 
beginning to be real. Now many souls, who, 
from having had in Jesus Christ a childhood too 
tender, too dependent on milk so sweet, fall back, 
and abandon the interior life, as soon as God 
begins to wean them. Should we be surprised 



104 



FAITH A1N T D CHARITY BETTER 



at this ? They make the sanctuary of what is 
only the forecourt of the temple. They wish 
only an exterior death of thefgross senses, in 
order to live a life of interior delights. Thence 
come so many infidelities and disappointments, 
even among souls that have appeared the most 
fervent and detached. The very persons that 
have talked most of detachment, death to self, 
of the darkness of faith and sacrifice, are often 
the most surprised and discouraged, when the 
trial comes, and thesolace is withdrawn. Oh, 
how good it is to follow the way marked out 
by the blessed John of the Cross, who would 
have us believe in the not-having, and love 
without desiring to feel. 

2. From the attachment to sensible enjoyment 
arise all illusions. Some souls are gross to 
that degree, that they need to feel, in order to 
find assurance. And yet this is all an error. 
What is matter of feeling deceives, it is a 
flattering bait for self-love. We have no fears 
of being wanting to God, while the pleasure 
lasts. We say then, in our abundance, we shall 
never be moved. But we think all lost when 
the intoxication is past. Thus we put our 
pleasure and our imagination in the place of 



THAN KNOWLEDGE AND ENJOYMENT. 105 



God. Pure faith alone preserves from illusion. 
When we lean upon nothing imagined, felt, en- 
joyed, luminous, and extraordinary ; when we 
cling to God alone in pure and naked faith, in 
the simplicity of the Gospel, receiving consola- 
tions that come to us, and resting upon none; 
never judging, and always obeying; easily be- 
lieving that we may be deceived, and that others 
can correct us ; finally, acting each moment with 
simplicity and good intention, according to the 
light of faith actually pr-esent, we are in the way 
most opposite to illusion. 

Practice will show, better than anything else, 
how much more safe this way is than that of 
fervor and extraordinary illumination. Whoever 
will choose to try it, will soon learn that this 
way of pure faith, followed in every thing, is the 
most profound and universal death to self. In- 
terior fervors and interior assurance indemnify 
self-love for every outward sacrifice it may 
make. It is a subtile possession of self that 
gives a secret and refined life. But to suffer 
ourselves to be stripped outwardly and inwardly, 
at the same time ; outwardly by Providence 
and inwardly by the nakedness of obscure faith, 
is total martyrdom, and consequently the state 



108 



FAITH AND CHARITY. 



farthest removed from illusion. We deceive 
ourselves and are misled, only by flattering our- 
selves, by sparing ourselves, by reserving some 
secret life to self-love, by putting something 
disguised in the place of God. When you re- 
nounce all peculiar light, and every flattering 
enjoyment ; when you wish only to love God 
without being anxious to have a conscious en- 
joyment of his presence, and to believe the truth 
of faith without being anxious to see, this desti- 
tution so dark leaves no hold to your own will, 
or your own judgment, which are the sources of 
all illusion. 

Thus those who wish to guard against illusion 
by seeking to enjoy fervor, and to acquire cer- 
tain assurance, are by this very means exposed 
to illusion. On the contrary, those who follow 
the drawings of the love that strips of all, and of 
pure faith, without seeking the light of knowl- 
edge and sensible fervors for their support, avoid 
that which can cause illusion and error. You 
will find in the Imitation of Christ, that the 
author says, that if God deprives you of interior 
delights, your pleasure should be to remain de- 
prived of all pleasure. 



THE PRESENCE OF 'GOD. 



107 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 

The true secret of our perfection is con- 
tained in those words of God to Abraham, 
" Walk before me and thou shalt be perfect." 

The presence of God calms the mind, gives 
a tranquil sleep, and repose even during the day, 
in the midst of all our labors. But it is neces- 
sary to be devoted to God without reserve. 

When one has found God, there is nothing 
more to seek for among men. It is necessary to 
make a sacrifice of one's best friends. The good 
friend is within the heart ; he is the spouse who 
is jealous, and drives away all the rest. 

There is not need of much time to love 
God ; to renew ourselves in his presence, to raise 
our hearts toward him, or adore him in the 
depths of the heart ; to offer to him what is done, 
and what is suffered ; and this is that true kino;- 
dom of God within us that nothing can trouble. 

When the distraction of the senses, and 
the activity of the imagination hinder the soul 
from collecting itself in a pleasant and sen- 
sible manner, we should at least calm ourselves 



103 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 



by the rectitude of the will ; then the desire 
of self recollection is a kind of recollection 
which is enough; we should turn towards God, 
and do with a right intention all that he would 
that we should do. 

We should endeavor to awaken in ourselves, 
from time to time, the desire of being devoted to 
God with all the extent of the powers of our 
souls ; that is to say, of our minds ; to know him 
and think of him, and of our wills to love him. 
Let us desire, too, that all our exterior senses 
may be consecrated to him in all their opera- 
tions. Let us take care not to be occupied too 
long a time, either without or within, with things 
that cause so great distraction to the heart and 
to the mind, and which so draw both out of 
themselves, that it is difficult for them to return 
within to find God. 

As soon as we feel that any foreign object gives 
us too much pleasure or joy, let us separate our 
hearts from it ; and to prevent them from taking 
its rest in the creature, let us present to them im- 
mediately their true object, sovereign good, which 
is God himself. In proportion as we shall be 
faithful to detach ourselves within from the crea- 
tures, that is to say, to hinder them from enter- 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 



109 



ing into the depths of the soul, which our Lord 
has reserved for himself that he may dwell 
there, and there be reverenced, adored, and 
loved, we shall soon taste the pure joy that God 
will not fail to give to a soul free, and disengaged 
from all human affection. 

When we perceive in ourselves any eager 
desires for anything, whatever it may be, and 
when we perceive that our humor carries us 
with too much activity to anything that is to be 
done, were it only to say a word, to see an ob- 
ject, to take a step, let us stop short, and repress 
the precipitation of our thoughts and the agita- 
tion of our actions ; since God has said himself 
that his Spirit dwells not in disorder. 

Let us take care not to take too great an in- 
terest in all things said and done, and not to be 
too much filled with them ; for it is a oreat 
source of distraction. As soon as we have seen 
what God demands of us in each thing that pre- 
sents itself, let us confine ourselves to that, and 
separate ourselves from all the rest. Thereby 
we shall keep the depths of our souls always 
free and tranquil, and we shall retrench many 
useless things that embarrass our hearts, and 
hinder them from turning easily towards God. 
10 



110 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 



An excellent means of keeping ourselves in 
interior solitude and freedom of mind is, at the 
end of each action to terminate with it all reflec- 
tions, by dismissing all the returns of self-love, 
whether of vain joy or of sadness. 

Happy he in whose mind nothing remains but 
what is necessary, and who thinks of each thing 
only when the time comes to think of it ; so 
that it is rather God who awakens the impres- 
sion of it, by the sight of his will, which is to be 
performed, than the mind itself taking pains to 
anticipate and seek for it. 

Finally, let us accustom ourselves to recall 
ourselves to ourselves, during the day, and in 
the course of our employments, by a simple view 
of God. Let us by this, calm all the movements 
of our hearts as soon as we see them agitated. 
Let us separate ourselves from all that does 
not come from God. Let us retrench useless 
thoughts and reveries. Let us not speak vain 
words. Let us seek God within us, and we 
shall infallibly find him, and with him joy and 
peace. 

In our exterior employments let us be still 
more occupied with God than with all else. To 
discharge them well, it is necessary to discharge 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 



Ill 



them in his presence, and perform them all for 
him. At the sight of the majesty of God we 
should become calm within, and remain at rest. 
A word of the Saviour once calmed a furiously 
agitated sea. One look of his toward us, and 
of ours toward him should still produce the same 
effect every day. 

We should often raise our hearts towards 
God. He will purify them. He will enlighten 
and direct them. It was the daily practice of 
the holy prophet David. " I had," said he, 
" the Lord always before me." 

•y. A£. m, .v, m, 

TP w TP 

We must not wait for the free hours, when 
we can shut the door. The moment that makes 
us regret, inward recollection will give us oppor- 
tunity to practise it. We should turn our hearts 
towards God in a manner simple, familiar, and 
full of confidence. The moments the most 
interrupted are good, and at all times, even 
while eating or hearing others talk. 

# * # * # 

We should read what is suited to our tastes 
and our wants ; but this should be often inter- 
rupted to give place to the interior spirit that 



112 CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 



leads to meditation. Two simple words, full of 
the Spirit of God. are the hidden manna. The 
words are forgotten, but they operate in secret. 
The soul is nourished and grows by them. 



OX CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 

All virtue consists essentially in having the 
will good. This is what Jesus means when he 
says, " the kingdom of God is within you." The 
matter is not to know much, to have great tal- 
ents, nor even to do great actions ; all that is 
necessary is to have a heart, and to love. 

Exterior works are the fruits and consequences 
of love ; and the source of good works is in the 
depths of the heart. 

There are certain virtues that are for certain 
conditions, and not for others. Some are suit- 
able at one time, and others at another. But a 
good will is suited to all times and places. 

To wish all that God wishes, and to wish this 
for all times and for all circumstances, this is 
that kingdom of God that is wholly interior. It 



CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 113 



is thereby that his kingdom comes, since his 
will is done on earth as in heaven, and we only 
will what his sovereign will inspires in ours. 

Happy the poor in spirit ! Happy those who 
strip themselves of all, and even of their own 
will, so as no longer to belong to themselves. 
Oh, how poor in spirit, and in the depth of his 
inward being, is one when he is no longer his 
own, and is stripped of all that is opposed to 
God! 

Bat how is it that the will becomes good ? 
By being conformed itself unreservedly to that of 
God. We wish all that he wills, and wish 
nothing that he does not will. We attach our 
feeble will to the almighty will that doth all, — 
thereby nothing can happen that we do not wish, 
for nothing can happen but what God wills, and 
we find in the good pleasure of God an inex- 
haustible source of peace and consolation. 

The interior life is a commencement of the 
blessed peace of the saints who eternally say, 
amen ! 

We adore, we praise, we bless God for every- 
thing, we see him without ceasing in all things, 
and in all things; his paternal hand is the only 
object with which we are occupied. There are 
10* 



114 CONFORMITY - TO THE WILL OF GOD. 



no longer any evils for us, since all things, even 
our most terrible sufferings, work together for 
good, as Paul says, to those who love God. 
Can we call the pains that God sends to purify 
us, and render us worthy of him, evils ? What 
does us so great good, cannot be an evil. 

Let us therefore cast all our cares into the 
bosom of so good a father, let us suffer him to do 
as he shall please. Let us content ourselves with 
following his will in all, and with putting ours 
in his so as to divest ourselves of it. It is not 
just that we should have anything for our own, 
we who are not our own. The slave has noth- 
ing of his own ; how much more then should 
the creature that has of itself only nothingness 
and sin, and in whom every gift is pure grace, 
hold nothing in property as its own. 

# # # m 

We have nothing of our own but our will ; 
all the rest is not ours. Sickness deprives us of 
health and life; riches are taken away from us 
by violence ; the talents of the mind depend on 
the disposition of the body ; the only thing that 
is truly our own is our will. 

# # # # 

Alas, how many souls are proprietors of them- 



CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 115 



selves, who would like to do good, and love 
God, but according to their own taste and by 
their own motive, who would wish to give rules 
to God in the way of drawing them to him ! 
They wish to serve him and possess him, but 
are not willing to give themselves to him and 
be possessed by him. What resistance does not 
God find in these souls, even when they appear 
so full of zeal and fervor! It is certain that in 
one sense their spiritual abundance becomes no 
obstacle ; for they hold everything, even their 
virtues as their property, and with a continual 
seeking of themselves in what is good. Oh, how 
far above all those fervent and illuminated souls, 
who always wish to make progress in virtue 
their own way, is a soul truly poor, truly re- 
nouncing its own life and all its natural motions, 
thoroughly divested of all will so as to wish only 
what God gives it to will at each moment ac- 
cording to the rules of his gospel and the course 
of his providence. 

f # # # 

Let us pray the Father of mercies and God 
of all consolation, to take from us our own hearts, 
and not leave to us the least particle. So pain- 
ful an operation costs much. It is very difficult 



116 CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 



to yield ourselves to God, and remain under his 
hand when he cuts to the quick. But it is the 
patience of the saints and the sacrifice of pure 
faith. 

Let us then suffer God to do with us all that 
he shall wish. Let there be no voluntary resist- 
ance, not even for a moment. As soon as we 
shall perceive the rebellion of the senses and of 
nature, let us turn toward God with confidence, 
and be on his side against timid and rebellious 
nature. Let us give it up to the spirit of God 
who will gradually bring death upon it. Let us 
watch in his presence against the slightest faults, 
so as not to grieve the Holy Spirit, who is jealous 
of all that passes within. Let us profit by the 
faults we have committed, by an humble sense 
of our misery, without discouragement and with- 
out weariness. 

Can we better glorify God, than by renounc- 
ing ourselves and our whole will, to let him do 
with us according to his good pleasure ? It is 
then that he is truly our God, and that his king- 
dom comes within us ; when, independently 
of all exterior help, and all interior consolation, 
we regard both within and without, only the 



CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD. 117 



band of God which does all, and which we do 
not cease to adore. 

To wish to serve him in one place rather 
than another, by such or such a way, and not by 
an opposite one, is to wish to serve him in our 
way and not in his. Bat to be equally ready 
for all, to wish everything and wish nothing ; 
to leave oneself like a toy in the hands of 
Providence ; to set no limits to this submission, 
as the dominion of God cannot suffer any, is to 
serve him by renouncing self; it is to treat him 
only as God, and treat ourselves as creatures 
made only for him. 

^ 

Let us then open our hearts ; but let us open 
them without measure, that God and his love 
may enter into them without measure, like a 
flood. Let us fear nothing in the path we are 
walking. God will lead us as if by the hand ; 
provided we do not doubt, and we are more 
filled with his love, than with fear with reference 
to ourselves. 



US 



GRATITUDE. 



ON GRATITUDE. 



That forgetfulness of self, which is often 
spoken of for the souls who wish to seek God 
generously, is not inconsistent with gratitude 
for his bene6ts. And for this reason, that this 
foro;etfulness does not consist in never seeing 
anything in reference to self; but only in not 
remaining shut up in self, occupied with one's 
own good or evil, by a view of property or self 
love. It is this being occupied with ourselves, 
(which is indeed too natural,) that withdraws us 
from pure and simple love, narrows our hearts, 
and carries us away from our true perfec- 
tion, by making us seek it with eagerness, with 
uneasiness and anxiety, from the love of our- 
selves. But although we forget ourselves, that 
is to say, no longer seek voluntarily our own in- 
terest, we do not fail to see ourselves on many 
occasions. We do not look at ourselves from 
the love of self, but the sight of God which we 
seek, often gives us as if by reflection a certain 
sight of ourselves. It is like a man looking at 
another, behind whom is a large mirror; in look- 



GRATITUDE. 



119 



ing at the other, he sees himself, and finds 
himself without seeking it. Thus is it in the 
pure light of God, that we see ourselves per- 
fectly. 

The presence of God, when it is pure, simple, 
and sustained by a fidelity of soul, is that great 
mirror in which we discover even the slightest 
stain in our souls. 

A peasant confined to his village knows but 
imperfectly its meanness ; but show him rich 
palaces, a splendid court, he feels all the poverty 
of his village, and cannot endure his tatters at the 
sight of so much magnificence. It is thus that 
we see our deformity and nothingness, in the 
beauty and infinite greatness of God. 

Show as much as you please, the vanity and 
nothingness of the creature, by the defects of 
created things ; set forth the brevity and uncer- 
tainty of life, the inconstancy of fortune, the 
unfaithfulness of friends, the illusion of great 
place, the bitterness that is inseparable from it, 
the disappointment of the noblest hopes, the 
emptiness of all the good we possess, the reality 
of all the evils we suffer : all these topics of 
morality, however true and affecting they may be, 
do but graze the heart : they do not penetrate 



120 



GRATITUDE, 



beneath the surface ; the real character of the 
man, the depths of the heart, are not changed 
by them. He sighs to see himself thus the 
slave of vanity, and still continues in this bond- 
age. But if the ray of the divine light enlight- 
ens him within, he sees in the abyss of good, 
which is God j the abyss of nothingness and evil 
that the corrupt creature is. He despises him- 
self, hates himself, forsakes himself, flies himself, 
fears himself, renounces himself, abandons him- 
self to God, loses himself in him. 

Happy loss ! for then w ithout seeking, he 
finds himself. He has no longer any selfish and 
human interest, and everything turns to his prof- 
it ; for all things work together for good, to 
those who love God. He sees the mercies that 
come into this abyss of weakness, of nothing- 
ness and sin ; he sees and takes delight in this 
view. Observe that those who are not yet very 
far advanced in the renunciation of themselves, 
still regard this course of divine mercies with 
reference to their own spiritual advantage, in 
proportion as they still cling more or less to them- 
selves. But as the entire abnegation of one's 
own will is very rare in this life, there are also 
very few souls that do not still regard received 
mercies, with reference to the fruits that they 



GRATITUDE, 



121 



receive from them for themselves, so that these 
souls, though they aim to have no longer any 
selfish interest, still do not fail to be very sensi- 
ble to this great interest. 

They are delighted to see an all-powerful 
hand that has snatched them from themselves ; 
that has delivered them from their own desires ; 
that has broken their bonds when they were 
bent only on plunging deeper into their slavery ; 
that has saved them, so to speak, in spite of them- 
selves ; and has taken pleasure in doing them as 
much good, as they did evil to themselves. 

Souls entirely pure and divested of self, such 
as those of the holy in heaven, would regard 
with as much love and complacency the mer- 
cies imparted to others, as the mercies they have 
received themselves ; for reckoning themselves 
no longer as anything, they love as much the 
good pleasure of God, the riches of his grace, 
and the glory that he derives from the sanctifi- 
cation of others, as that which he derives from 
their own. All is then equal, because self is 
lost and annihilated ; the Me is no more my- 
self than others ; God alone is all in all in us; 
it is he that is loved, that is admired, and forms 
all the joy of the heart in this celestial and disin- 
11 



122 



GRATITUDE. 



terested love. We are ravished with his mercies, 
not for love of ourselves, but for love of him. 
We thank him for having done his will, and do- 
rified himself, as we ask of him in prayer that he 
will deign to perform his will and give glory to his 
name. In this state it is no longer for ourselves 
that we ask. nor for ourselves that we give 
thanks. But until this blessed state comes, the 
soul, still holding to self, is moved with affection- 
ate gratitude by this relic of reference to self. 
All of this reference that still remains, excites a 
lively gratitude ; this gratitude is a love still a 
little mixed, and having a reference to self ; 
whereas the gratitude of souls lost in God, like 
that of the saints in heaven, is love without 
bounds; a love without reference to selfish inter- 
ests ; a love as much transported by the mercies 
imparted to others, as by those bestowed upon 
ourselves ; a love that admires and receives the 
gifts of God only for the pure interest of the glo- 
ry of God himself. 

But as nothing is more dangerous than to 
wish to go beyond the measures of one's state, 
nothing would be more hurtful to a soul, that 
needs to be sustained by sentiments of gratitude, 
than to deprive itself of this nourishment that is 



GRATITUDE, 



123 



suited to it, and run after the ideas of a higher 
perfection, which are not yet suited to it, and 
which are found only in Heaven. When the 
soul is touched by the remembrance of all that 
God has done for it, it is a certain mark that it 
has need of this remembrance, even supposing it 
has in this remembrance a certain interested joy 
with regard to its own happiness. We should 
allow this joy in all its liberty and all its extent ; 
for love although interested, sanctifies the soul, 
and we should patiently wait for God to come 
and purify it himself. It would be to anticipate 
him, and undertake what is reserved for him 
alone, to wish to take from man all the motives 
in which his own interest mingles with that 
of God. 

Man himself ought not to constrain his heart 
in this matter, or renounce before the time the 
supports of which his infirmity has need. The 
child that attempts to walk before he is allowed 
to go alone, will soon fall. It is not for him to 
throw aside the leading strings with which his 
nurse supports him. 

• Let us then live on gratitude, while gratitude, 
even interested, shall serve to nourish our hearts. 
Let us love the mercies of God, not only from 



124 



GRATITTDE. 



love of him and his glow, but also from love of 
ourselves and our eternal happiness, while this 
view shall have for us a certain support suited 
to our condition. If afterward God opens our 
hearts to a love more pure and more generous, 
to a love that refers to him directly, that sees 
only his glory, let us suffer ourselves to be drawn 
alone without delay or hesitation, to this so per- 
fect love. 

If then we love the mercies of God ; if they 
ravish us with joy and admiration ; by the 
pleasure solely of seeing God so good and so 
great, if we are no longer affected, except by the 
fulfilment of his will, by his glory that he finds 
as pleaseth him. by the greatness with which he 
makes a vessel of honor of that which was a 
vesel of dishonor ; let us render thanks to him 
still more willingly,, since the benefit is greater, 
and since the purest of all the gifts of God, is 
loving his gifts only for him, and without seek- 
ing ourselves. 



HOW TO ENDURE SUFFERINGS. 



125 



THAT LOVE ALOXE KNOWS HOW TO ENDURE 
SUFFERINGS TRULY. AND TO LOVE 
SUFFERINGS. 

We know that we need, and that we deserve 
to suffer ; and yet we are always surprised at 
suffering, as if we thought that we neither de- 
serve nor need it. True and pure love alone 
loves to suffer, inasmuch as true and pure love 
alone makes an entire self-surrender. Resigna- 
tion leads us to endure sufferings ; but there is 
in it something that suffers from this endurance 
of suffering, and which resists. Resignation 
that gives nothing to God but with measure and 
with reflection upon self, indeed wishes to suffer, 
but is often examining itself from fear of bearing 
trial ill. Properly speaking, there are, as it 
were, two different persons in resignation ; one 
subdues the other, and watches over it to keep 
it from revolting. In the pure love, that is a 
state of entire renunciation and self-surrender, 
the soul nourishes itself in silence, with the cross 
and the union with Christ crucified, without 
any reflection or sensibility upon its suffering. 
There is nothing but one single, simple will, that 
11* 



126 HOW TO ENDURE SUFFERINGS. 



yields itself for God to see it, such as it is, and 
without seeking to see itself. It says nothing, 
it observes nothing. What does it then ? It 
suffers. Is that all ? Yes, that is all ; it has 
nothing to do but to suffer. Love shows itself 
well enough, without speaking, and without 
thinking. It does the only thing it has to do, 
which is to wish for nothing, when every con- 
solation fails. A will satisfied with that of God 
while all else is taken from it, is the most pure 
of all loves. 

What a relief then to think, that we need not 
give ourselves so much anxiety in order to quick- 
en ourselves continually to patience, and to 
be always on our guard, and anxious, in order 
to support outwardly the character of an ac- 
complished virtue. It is sufficient to be little 
and entirely submissive in grief. It is not cour- 
age ; it is something more and less; less in the 
eyes of the mass of virtuous men ; more in the 
sight of pure faith. It is a littleness in itself, 
that puts the soul in all the greatness of God. 
It is a weakness that takes away all strength in 
oneself, and gives the omnipotence of God. 
" When I am weak/ 5 says St. Paul, " then am I 
strong ; — I can do all things through him that 



INTERESTED LOVE. 



127 



strengthened me/' Then it is sufficient to 
nourish oneself with some short reading, suited to 
our condition and our taste, but often interrupted 
to relieve the senses, and give place for the inte- 
rior spirit that produces recollection. Sometimes 
we suffer almost without knowing that we suf- 
fer ; at other times we suffer, and we find that 
we endure our trials ill, and we support our im- 
patience, as a second cross heavier than the first ; 
but nothing is an impediment, because true love 
is continuallv going on. not walking bv its own 
strength, and counting itself as nothing. Then 
are we truly happy. The cross is no longer a 
cross, when there is no longer a Me to suffer it, 
and which appropriates to itself, its blessings 
and its evils. 



DISINTERESTED AND INTERESTED LOVE HAVE 
EACH THEIR SEASON. 

Why do we like better to see the gifts of God 
in ourselves than in others, if it is not from 
attachment to self? Whoever loves better to 
see them in himself than in others, will be dis- 



128 



DISINTERESTED AND 



tressed also at seeing them in others more per- 
fect than in himself ; and this is jealousy. What 
then should we do ? We should rejoice that God 
does his will in us, and reigns in us, less for our 
own happiness, or our perfection, in so far as it is 
ours, than for his good pleasure and his pure 
glory. 

Observe in this matter two things ; the one, 
that all this is not an extravagant subtilty ; for 
God who wishes to strip the soul, in order to 
lead it to perfection, and urge it on without re- 
spite, to the purest love, really makes it pass 
through these trials of itself, and does not leave 
it at rest, until he has taken from its self-love 
all reference to self, all support in itself. Noth- 
ing is so jealous, so severe, so scrupulous, as this 
principle of pure love. It cannot suffer a thou- 
sand things that are imperceptible to us in a 
common state. And what pious persons in gen- 
eral call over-refinement, appears an essential 
thing to a soul that wishes to get entirely free 
from self. It is like gold that is purified in the 
crucible ; the fire consumes all that is not the 
pure gold. Thus, it is necessary that there 
should be a kind of universal fusing of the heart 
to purify the divine love. 



INTERESTED LOVE. 



129 



The second thing to be observed is, that 
God does not lead on all souls to this extent in 
this life. There are very many pious souls that 
he suffers to retain some reference to self. This 
reference even sustains them in the practice of 
virtues, and serves to purify to a certain extent. 

Nothing would be more indiscreet and more 
dangerous, than to deprive them of this consoling 
habit of regarding the graces of God, with refer- 
ence to their own improvement. The first 
persons have a disinterested gratitude ; they glo- 
rify God for what he does in them, for his 
pure glory alone. The last regard themselves 
also in them, and unite their interest to that of 
God. If the first wished to take from the others 
this mixture, and this support in themselves 
with reference to the gifts of grace, they 
would do the same harm, as if one should wean 
a child that is not yet able to eat ; to take from 
it the breast is to kill it. We should never 
wish to deprive a soul of that which still nour- 
ishes it, and which God leaves it to support its 
weakness. To wish to anticipate a gift of grace 
is to destroy it. This class of persons, on the 
other hand, should not condemn the others 
because they do not see them occupied like them- 



TRUE LIBERTY. 



selves, with their own perfection in the graces 
that they receive. God does in each what plea- 
seth him ; the spirit blows where it lists, and as 
it lists. The forgetfulness of self, in the pure 
sight of God, is a state in which God can do 
all that is most agreeable to him. What is im- 
portant is, that the second sort of persons be not 
curious about the state of the others ; and that 
the others do not wish to make known to them 
the trials that belong not to their condition, 
before God calls them to them. 



ON TRUE LIBERTY. 

When we are not embarrassed by disquieting 
reference to self, we begin to be free with a 
true liberty. 

On the contrary, false wisdom, which is always 
on the stretch, always occupied with itself, al- 
ways jealous of its own perfection, suffers a 
cutting pain, whenever it sees in itself the least 
blemish. 



TRUE LIBERTY. 



131 



Not that the man who is simple and detached 
from self, does not labor for his own perfection ; 
he labors for it so much the more, as he forgets 
himself the more ; and as he thinks of virtues, 
only in order to fulfil the will of God. The 
fault, which in us is the source of all others, is 
the love of self to which we refer all, instead 
of referring all to God. Whoever therefore 
labors to become free from self, to forget 
himself, to renounce himself, according to the 
precept of Jesus Christ, cuts up at a single 
stroke the root of all vices, and finds in this 
renunciation of self, the germ of all virtues. 

Then we understand and experience within 
ourselves the profound truth of that saying of 
the Scripture, " Where the spirit of the Lord is, 
there is liberty." We neglect nothing to estab- 
lish the kingdom of God within us, and with- 
out ; but we are at peace in the midst of the 
humiliation caused by our faults. We would 
choose rather to die, than voluntarily commit 
the slightest fault ; but we fear not the judgment 
of men for the interest of our own reputation. 
We devote ourselves to the reproach of Jesus 
Christ, and remain at peace in the uncertainty of 
events. As respects the judgments of God, 



132 



TRUE LIBERTY. 



we give ourselves up to them, imploring bis mer- 
cies, according to the different degrees either of 
confidence, or sacrifice, or entire renunciation of 
self. The more entire the surrender we make, 
the more peace we find ; and this peace gives 
such freedom to the heart, that we are prepared 
for everything, we wish everything and wish 
nothing, and are simple as little children. 

The light of God makes us feel even the 
slightest faults, but it does not discourage. We 
walk before him ; but if we stumble, we hasten 
to resume our way, and only think of advancing 
continually. Oh. how happy is this simplicity ! 
But there are few souls that have the courage 
never to look behind them. Like Lot's wife, 
they draw down upon themselves the curse of 
God, by this anxious turning back of a jealous 
and sensitive self-love. 

We must lose what remains of the old man 
within us, if we wish to find ourselves again in 
God. It is to the little ones, that Jesus Christ 
declares that his kingdom belongs. Not to rea- 
son too much, to advance toward the good by an 
upright intention in common things ; to dismiss 
a thousand reflections, by which we become 
wrapped up, and plunged deeper in self, under 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 



133 



pretext of correcting ourselves ; such are in 
general the principal means of being free with a 
true liberty, without neglecting our duties. 



ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 
# # # # 

A general rule for employing our time well, 
is to accustom ourselves to live in a continual 
dependence on the spirit of God, and his law; 
receiving from moment to moment, what he is 
pleased to give us ; consulting him in the doubts, 
in which it is necessary to choose our course at 
once ; recurring to him in those seasons of weak- 
ness, in which virtue faints ; invoking him, and 
lifting ourselves towards him, when the heart, 
seduced by sensible objects, sees itself drawn 
imperceptibly from its road, and discovers itself 
in a state of forgetfulness of God, and distance 
from him. 

Happy the soul that, by a sincere renunciation 
of self, keeps itself ever in the hands of its Cre- 
ator, ready to do all his will, and is not weary 
12 



134 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 



of saying to him a hundred times a day ; " Lord 
what wouldst thou have me to do ? Teach me 
to do thy holy will, because thou art my 
God. Thou wilt show that thou art my God, 
by teaching me ; and I, that I am thy creature, 
by obedience. In what hands, great God, shall 
I be better than in thine ? Away from them, 
my soul is always exposed to the attacks of its 
enemies, and my welfare is always in danger. 
I am nothing but ignorance and weakness ; and 
1 should hold my ruin certain, if thou shouldst 
leave me to my own conduct, disposing at my 
own will of the precious time thou givest me to 
sanctify myself, and walking blindly in the ways 
of my own heart. In this state how could I but 
make a bad choice every hour ? And what could 
I effect in myself but a work of self-love, sin and 
condemnation. Send then, Oil Lord ! thy light 
to guide my steps, impart to me thy grace, on 
all occasions, according to my wants, as children 
have their food apportioned to them according 
to their age and weakness. Teach me by a 
holy use of the present time, to repair the past, 
and never foolishly reckon on the future." 

Times of business, and exterior occupation, in 
order to be well employed, only need a simple 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 



135 



attention to the directions of divine Providence; 
since it is that which prepares them for us, and 
presents them to us, we have only to follow it with 
docility, and submit entirely to God, our temper, 
our own will, our fastidiousness, our anxiety, our 
reference to self; or on the other hand, all over- 
flowing of the heart, the precipitation, the vain 
joy, and other passions that come in its way, ac- 
cording as the things that we have to deal with 
are agreeable or troublesome to us. We must 
take good care not to suffer ourselves to be over- 
whelmed by what comes from without, and not to 
be drowned in the multitude of exterior occupa- 
tions, whatever they may be. 

We should endeavor to begin all our under- 
takings with reference to the pure glory of God ; 
continue them without dissipation of mind ; and 
finish them without eagerness, and without im- 
patience. 

The times of conversations and amusements 
are the most dangerous for us, and perhaps the 
most useful for others ; w r e ought in these to be 
on our guard, that is to say, more faithful in the 
presence of God. The practice of Christian 
watchfulness, so much recommended by our 
Lord ; the aspirations and elevation of mind and 



136 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 



heart toward God, not only habitual but actual, 
as far as possible, by the simple views that faith 
gives ; the sweet and peaceful dependence that 
the soul maintains toward the grace, which it re- 
cognises as the only sure principle of its strength ; 
all this must then be employed to preserve our- 
selves from the subtile poison, often hidden 
under conversations and pleasures, and to know 
how to employ wisely, what can instruct and 
edify others. 

Seasons of leisure are generally the most 
agreeable and useful for ourselves ; we can hard- 
ly employ them better, than by consecrating 
them to repair our strength (I mean even our 
bodily strength,) by a more secret and intimate 
communion with God. Prayer is so necessary, 
and the source of so many blessings, that the soul 
which has found this treasure cannot help re- 
turning to it whenever it is left to itself. 



GREAT SENSIBILITY UNDER SUFFERINGS. 137 



ON TOO GREAT SENSIBILITY UNDER SUF- 
FERINGS. 

This sensibility does not depend on our- 
selves. God gives it to us with our tempera- 
ment, in order to exercise us. He would not 
deliver us from it, but, on the contrary, make 
use of it for our sanctification. Let us therefore 
enter into his designs. Trials are necessary for 
us ; the only thing important for us is not to sink 
under them. Inward trials, are like those from 
without, they all tend to lead us to victory 
through combat. Inward temptations are in- 
deed the more profitable, inasmuch as they serve 
more directly to humble us, by the experience 
of our inward corruption. Those from without 
only go to show us the malignity of the world 
about us. Those from within, make us feel that 
we too are as depraved as the rest of the world. 

Let us bear them with humble confidence 
and peace. Our inward agitations, and all the 
trials that arise from the depths of our hearts, as 
well as the storms that assail us from abroad, all 
come equally from the hand of God, who knows 
how to make use of ourselves, as well as of 
12* 



133 GREAT SENSIBILITY UNDER SUFFERINGS. 



others, to make us die to self. Often our pride 
is disturbed and discouraged, at seeing so many 
revolts remaining obstinately within us ; while it 
would wish to see its passions in subjection, in 
order to nourish itself with this glory, and take 
pleasure in its own perfection. 

Let us endeavor to be faithful in the depths 
of the will, notwithstanding the repugnances and 
agitations of nature ; and let us yield to the 
purpose of God, when he would show us by 
these tempests, to what shipwrecks we should be 
exposed, if his powerful hand did not save us 
from them. 

But even if it happen to us to fall voluntarily 
through frailty, let us humble, let us abase 
ourselves ; let us correct ourselves without 
pity for ourselves, let us not lose a moment 
in returning to God ; but let us do it simply and 
without agitation ; let us rise up again and go 
on our way with resolution, without being vexed 
or discouraged on account of our fall. 



CROSSES IN PROSPERITY. 



139 



OF THE CROSSES IN A CONDITION OF PROSPERI- 
TY, HIGH STATION, AND GREATNESS. 

God gives some crosses of iron, and of lead, 
which are overwhelming in themselves; some he 
forms for us of straw, that seem to weigh nothing 
and yet which are no less difficult to bear ; some 
he makes of gold and precious stones, which 
dazzle spectators and excite the envy of the 
world, but which are no less crucifying than the 
most despised crosses. He makes them of all 
things we love most, and turns them to bitter- 
ness. High station brings with it constraint, 
and weariness ; it gives what we do not wish, 
and takes away what we should choose. 

A poor man who wants bread, has a cross of 
lead in his extreme poverty. God knows how 
to temper the greatest prosperity with like mis- 
eries. In this prosperity we suffer as keen a 
hunger for liberty and consolation, as the poor 
man suffers for bread ; and he in his suffering can 
at least knock at every door, and excite the 
compassion of passers by ; but people in high 
station, in their poverty, are ashamed and 
venture not to ask compassion, or seek any re- 



140 



CROSSES IN PROSPERITY. 



lief. God is often pleased to add bodily infir- 
mity to this servitude of the mind in high sta- 
tion. Nothing is more profitable, than these 
two crosses united. They crucify the man 
from head to foot. He feels his own weakness, 
and the worthlessness of all he possesses. The 
world sees not your cross, for it observes nothing 
but a little constraint softened by authority ; 
and some slight indisposition, that it may sus- 
pect to spring from too great delicacy. At the 
same time you see in your condition nothing but 
bitterness, coldness, weariness, slavery, discour- 
agement, pain, impatience. All that dazzles 
spectators, at a distance disappears to the eyes 
of the possessor, and God in reality crucifies 
him, while all the world envies his happiness. 
Thus Providence knows how to lay on us the 
most various trials in every condition. Without 
falling from this high rank, and without calamities, 
we may swallow the cup of bitterness ; and it is 
swallowed to its bitterest dregs, in the golden 
cups that are served at the table of kings. 
God takes pleasure in thus confounding human 
power, which is but disguised weakness. Hap- 
py he who sees these things with the eyes 
of the mind, enlightened as St. Paul speaks. 



CROSSES IN PROSPERITY. 



141 



Station you see and feel gives no true solace. 
It has no power against the ordinary ills of na- 
ture. It adds many new and very painful ones 
to those of nature itself already miserable enough. 

# * * * 

But religion turns to profit all the burdens of 
greatness. It takes it but as a slavery ; and it is 
in the love of this slavery that it finds a liberty 
as much more true, as it is unknown to men. 

We should find no good in prosperity, but that 
which the world cannot recognise in it ; I mean 
its crosses. High station is exempt from none 
of the sufferings of nature. It brings with it great 
ones of its own ; and besides prevents our re- 
ceiving those solaces that we might in a condi- 
tion of obscurity. 

Thus, God would render ridiculous and fear- 
ful, what the world admires most ; thus, he 
treats without sparing, those whom he elevates 
without measure, to make them serve as an ex- 
ample. Thus he wishes to render the cross 
complete, by placing it in the most dazzling 
station to bring contempt on worldly honor ; and 
happy are they who in this condition view the 
hand of God, which through mercy crucifies 
them ! 

# # # # 



142 CROSSES IN PROSPERITY. 

In this state there is but little to be done. 
God needs not that we should say many words 
to him, nor that we should form many thoughts. 
He sees our hearts sometimes submissive and de- 
sirous to love him, and this is enough; he can 
see our suffering and our submission. We have 
no need to repeat, every moment, to a person 
whom we love, I love you with all my heart. 
It often happens even, that we are a long time 
without thinking of our love for him, and yet 
love him no less at such times, than when we 
are making the tenderest protestations. The 
true love reposes in the depths of the breast ; it 
is simple, peaceable, sometimes silent. We often 
confuse ourselves by multiplying unreasonable 
words and reflections. This sensible love is 

only a heated imagination. 

* # # # 

We should not disquiet ourselves to procure 
an artificial presence of God and his truths. It 
is sufficient to abide simply in these dispositions 
of the heart, and to be willing to be cruci- 
fied ; or at most it is enough to have a view, 
simple, and without effort, that is remembered 
whenever we shall be inwardly admonished of 
it by a certain remembrance, which is a sort of 
waking of the heart. 



DAYS OF THE CHUfiCH. 



143 



Thus the sufferings of high station, the pains 
of illness, and inward imperfections even, if they 
are borne peaceably and with humility, are the 
only antidote of a condition, which is in itself 
so dangerous. In apparent prosperity there is 
nothing good but the hidden cross. O cross ! 
O blessed cross ! I embrace thee, I adore in 
thee the dying Jesus with whom 1 too must die. 



FOR THE DAYS OF THE CHURCH. 



DAY OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 

Oh, Jesus ! I desire to repose with John on 
thy bosom, and resting my heart on thine, be 
nourished with love. I wish, like the beloved 
disciple, to be instructed by thy love. This 
disciple said from his own experience, 61 the 
anointing teaches all things" This interior 
anointing by thy spirit, teaches in silence. — 
We love, and know all that we need to know ; 
we taste and have no need to hear anything. 
Every human word is burdensome, and serves 
but to distract, because we have within the 



144 



DAYS OF THE CHURCH. 



substantial word which feeds the soul in its inmost 
depths. We find in it all truth. We see but 
one thing, which is simple and universal truth. 
It is God before whom the creature, that de- 
ceitful nothing, disappears and leaves no trace 
of its illusion. 

# * # # # 
Love decides all cases, and is never mistaken ; 
for it gives nothing to man and refers all to God 
alone. It is a consuming fire that embraces all, 
consumes all, annihilates all, and makes of its vic- 
tim a perfect holocaust. Oh, how true the know- 
ledge of God which it gives ! for it suffers us to 
see nought but him, but with a view very differ- 
ent from that of men who consider him only in 
cold and dry speculation. Then we love all that 
we see : and love gives piercing eyes to see it. A 
moment of peace and silence shows to us more 
wonders than the profound reflections of all the 
learned. 

# # # * 

Oh, Jesus ! 1 have no teacher but thee, no book 
but thy heart ! There 1 learn all by becoming 
ignorant of all, and annihilating myself. There 
I live the same life that thou dost live in the 
bosom of thy Father. I live on love : love does 



DAYS OF THE CHURCH. 



145 



all in me. It is for love above all that 1 was 
created, and I accomplish the purpose of God 
in my creation only so far as I love. I know 
therefore all, and wish to know nought but thee. 
Be silent, wise and curious world ; 1 have found on 
the bosom of Jesus the ignorance and foolishness 
of his cross, in comparison with which all your 
talents are but dross. 



FOR LEXT. 

It is now for me, Oh God ! a season of priva- 
tion and abstinence. But it is nothing to fast 
from the gross viands that nourish the body, if 
we do not at the same time fast from all that 
serves as the aliment of self-love. Give me 
then, Oh spouse of souls ! that interior virginity, 
that purity of heart, that separation from every 
created thing, that sobriety of which thy apostle- 
speaks, by which no creature is used, except 
according to our need, as sober people use food. 
Oh, blessed fast ! in which the soul holds the 
senses deprived of all that is superfluous. Oh, 
holy abstinence ! in which the soul satisfied with 
the will of God, is no longer nourished by its 
own will. It has, like Jesus, other meat to eat. 
13 



146 



DAYS OF THE CHURCH. 



Give me, Oh Lord ! that bread which is above 
all substance, that bread which will forever 
appease the hunger of my heart; that bread 
which appeases every desire ; that bread which 
is the true manna, and supplies the place of all 
else. 

Oh, my God ! let the creatures then be silent 
for me, and I for them, in this holy time ! Let 
my soul be nourished in silence, fasting from all 
vain discourse. May I be nourished from thee 
alone, and the cross of thy son Jesus. 

But what ! must I be in continual fear of 
breaking this interior fast, by the consolations I 
might receive from without ? No, no, my God ; 
thou wouldst not have this constraint and anx- 
iety. This spirit is a spirit of love and of liberty, 
and not a spirit of fear and servitude. I will 
renounce then everything that is not according to 
thine order for my condition; everything which 
1 find distracts me too much ; and everything 
those who are my guides to thee judge 1 should 
retrench : and, finally, whatever thou shalt re- 
trench thyself, by the events of thy Providence. 
I will bear all these privations peacefully, and I 
will add this moreover, in innocent and neces- 
sary conversation, I will retrench whatever thou 



DAYS OF THE CHURCH. 



147 



shalt make me feel within, to be only a seeking 
of myself. When I shall feel myself led to make 
any sacrifice in these things, I will do it cheer- 
fully. But in other respects, I know thou wish- 
es! that a heart that loves thee should be at ease. 
I will act with confidence, like a child playing 
in the arms of its mother. I will rejoice before 
the Lord. I will try to make others rejoice. I 
will open my heart without fear in the assembly 
of the children of God. All I wish is candor, in- 
nocence, and the joy of the holy spirit. Far from 
me then, Oh God ! be that gloom v and fearful 
wisdom which ever torments itself, which always 
holds in its hand the balance to weigh atoms 
for fear of breaking this interior fast. It is un- 
just to thee not to act toward thee in a simple 
and childlike manner ; this rigor is unworthy of 
thy compassion. Thou wouldst have us love 
thee alone ; on this point thou art jealous ; but 
when one loves thee, thou sufTerest the love to 
act freely, and thou canst see what proceeds 
from this. 

I will fast then, Oh, my God ! from all will that 
is not thine : but I will fast through love, in the 
liberty and abundance of my heart. Woe to the 
soul shut up, straitened, and chilled in itself, which 



148 



DAYS OF THE CHURCH, 



fears everything, and which through fear has no 
time to love, and run generously after the spouse. 

Oh, how strbt the fast, to which without 
constraint, thou dost lead the soul ! There re- 
mains to the heart nothing but the Beloved, and 
often this Beloved is hidden from the soul, to 
leave it as if fainting and ready to expire. This 
is that severe fast in which the man sees his 
naked poverty : for even the least remnant of 
life in himself is taken from him. Oh, severe 
fast of true faith ! who shall comprehend thee ? 
Where is the soul courageous enough to fulfil 
thee ? Oh, universal privation ! Oh, renuncia- 
tion of oneself, as well as of the vainest out- 
ward things ! Oh, fidelity of a soul that forsakes 
itself to follow thee without reserve through jeal- 
ous love, and suffers all to be taken from it ! 
Such, Oh Lord ! is the sacrifice of those who 
worship thee in spirit and in truth. It is by such 
trials that one becomes worthy of thee. Oh 
Lord ! render my soul empty, hungry and faint- 
ing. Do according to thy good pleasure. I 
am silent, I adore. I say without ceasing, Let 
thy will, not mine be done. I wish for nought 
but thee, Oh God ! 



9 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2006 

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